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To say that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb is both a huge overstatement and a huge understatement all at the same time. A more accurate view is that he perfected a practical light bulb and that his real aim and achievement was the invention of an electrical system to produce and distribute electrical power.

In 1878 the best source of lighting was gas. Unfortunately it was far from convenient. It was dirty, unhealthy, uncomfortable and dangerous. When gas burned it created soot - soot on the fixtures, soot on the wallpaper, soot on the furniture and soot on the carpet. The fixtures alone had to be cleaned almost every day. It degraded the air quality by emitting soot and depleting oxygen. During the summer it made the air even hotter and more uncomfortable. It caused explosions, fires and its care could not be trusted to children. But its major deficit was that it could not serve as a source of power. The appliances we take for granted today - fans, refrigerators, electric irons and computers - could not be powered by gas.

For decades inventors and businessmen had been trying to invent a better way - a light source powered by electricity. They had already worked out the basic outline. It would be made of a filament in a vacuum, and when a current was passed through the filament it would glow. But they could not get it to work well. The crux of the problem was finding a filament that would not disintegrate.

In 1878 Edison decided to throw the bulk of his attention and resources into the perfection of the light bulb. The way he went about this goal illustrates several salient features of how he worked. For example, he usually did not invent something out of a vacuum. Other people had worked long and hard on the incandescent lamp, and he built on what they learned. The only major exception to this pattern was his invention of the phonograph. Another feature of his work was his inventing methodology. Edison was not an inventor interested in theory. He used a painstaking trial and error method. He literally tested thousands of different substances as filaments and sent men all over the world to try to find better materials. The last feature of his work was that he did not work alone. He was not a solitary inventor working in his basement. He had a large staff and organization to carry out his experiments. There were several other men with prominent roles in the perfection of the light bulb: Charles Batchelor, John Kruesi, Francis Jehl and Frances Upton. To a large degree these men were willing to contribute not only their work but also creative ideas to Edison for little or no credit.

For a brief period the material of choice for the filament was carbon. But because the quality of the vacuums that could be created was so poor carbon filaments disintegrated quickly. Edison switched to the more resilient material platinum. In 1879 he obtained an improved vacuum pump called the Sprengel vacuum, and it proved to be the catalyst for a breakthrough. Edison switched back to experiments with carbon filaments because he thought it would be more fruitful and because platinum was expensive. He tested carbon source after carbon source and on October 21 and 22 he carbonized a piece of Clark's sewing thread to form a filament. It burnt 13.5 hours - a huge breakthrough. Soon by changing the shape of the filament to a horseshoe it burned for over 100 hours. Edison and his colleagues had invented a practical light bulb and by doing so they opened up the way for the establishment of the electrical power system.

It was this power system that became Edison's real achievement. It beget a huge new industry that would radically effect everyone. This was because once a house or business had electricity installed for lighting an almost endless amount of other items could be developed and sold: electric irons, fans, electric motors, refrigerators and eventually items like air conditioners and computers. There were dozens of new items that had to be invented or improved in order to produce and distribute electricity. Edison ended up inventing dozens of new devices used to produce and distribute electricity. Items like screw top sockets, meters, insulation, fuses, switches, junction boxes, indicator panels and better dynamos. The improvement of the dynamo in itself was a significant achievement. The dynamo was the device the turned mechanical energy into electrical energy. When Edison started working on the light bulb the best dynamo around produced electricity at only 40% efficiency. He developed one that was 82% efficient. All these technological development made it possible for Edison to start providing electricity commercially to New York City. By September of 1882 he had opened a central station on Pearl Street in Manhattan and was eventually supplying electricity to a one mile square section of New York.

Edison did make a lot of money off of his inventions but he was never as brilliant a business man as inventor. In 1878, even before he had a decent light bulb, he had found backers and started a company called the Edison Electric Light Company. As he went along he created a half a dozen other companies in the electric field. They merged in 1889 to form the Edison General Electric Company. In 1892 it merged with a company called Thomson-Houston to form General Electric. The dropping of Edison's name was a symbol of the dropping of Edison. He had sold out his shares and power to gain time and money for his other interests. He made a good deal of money, but he sold out too soon. Today General Electric is one of the largest corporations in the world. It has revenues of $70 billion a year, 222,000 employees and operates in 100 countries.

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