“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clarke 

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” — Mark Weiser

In 2011, the electric light bulb hardly seems magical but it has certainly ‘weaved itself into the fabric of everyday life’. But the light bulb was certainly magical when it was first introduced in the mid 19th century.

I have been writing about the Smart Grid the past few days and a post of about the light bulb certainly seems in line with the theme. The April 2011 issue of the IEEE Spectrum Magazine has an informative article about the history of the incandescent light bulb. If you are not interested in reading the entire article at least check out the great photos. Many of the photos date back to the early 1900s.

The most surprising thing about the early light bulbs was the choice of materials used for the filament. Some of the material included bamboo fiber, cotton, paper and grass. All of these materials seem extremely combustible. I would have never imagined that you could heat them so hot as to emit light. It turns out that their behavior in vacuum is far different from what would happen in the presence of air (oxygen). Another fun fact: In the 1940s, the light bulbs came with an instructional manual!

A few years ago, one would have read this article in a magazine, appreciated it and then closed the magazine. But now, our hyper-connected world makes it possible to interact and learn more in ways we had not anticipated. I initially read the article in the ‘old-world’ book format. Since I liked it, I visited the website to see if they had any additional content. There was nothing from the publisher but there were user comments at the bottom of the article. One of the comments mentioned the ‘Phoebus Cartel’, a term that I was not familiar with. This cartel earned its place in history by supposedly imposing an artificial lifespan of 1000 hours on each light bulb. There’s more information about the cartel on Wikipedia. There is no hard evidence that the Cartel imposed this lifespan on bulbs but it certainly controlled competition and sales of the light bulbs.

The incandescent bulb has lasted over 130 years and it will be exciting to see how the new generation of compact flourescent and LED bulbs will evolve.