Try AGAIN

I ROAR with Emmanuel Obani ~Episode 7

“Try again”~EDISON’S LIGHTBULB

In the period from 1878 to 1880 Edison and his associates worked on at least three thousand different theories to develop an efficient incandescent lamp.

Incandescent lamps make light by using electricity to heat a thin strip of material (called a filament) until it gets hot enough to glow.

Many inventors had tried to perfect incandescent lamps to “sub-divide” electric light or make it smaller and

weaker than it was in the existing arc lamps, which were too bright to be used for small spaces such as the rooms of a house.

Edison’s lamp would consist of a filament housed in a glass vacuum bulb. He had his own glass blowing shed where the fragile bulbs were carefully crafted for his experiments.

Edison was trying to come up with a high resistance system that would require far less electrical power than was used for the arc lamps. This could eventually mean small electric lights suitable for home use.

By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light.

It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting.

Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory.

He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn’t work with it given the tools available at that time.

One day, Edison was sitting in his laboratory absent-mindedly rolling a piece of compressed carbon between his fingers.

He began carbonizing materials to be used for the filament. He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics.

Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination.

“Before I got through,” he recalled, “I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material.”

“The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most elaborate experiments,” he wrote. “I was never myself discouraged, or inclined to be hopeless of success. I cannot say the same for all my associates.”

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Edison decided to try a carbonized cotton thread filament. When voltage was applied to the completed bulb, it began to radiate a soft orange glow. Just about fifteen hours later, the filament finally burned out.

Further experimentation produced filaments that could burn longer and longer with each test. Patent number 223,898 was given to Edison’s electric lamp.

The Edison lamp from our Attic is dated January 27, 1880. It is a product of the continued improvements Edison made to the 1879 bulb.

Even though it is over a hundred years old, this bulb looks very much like the light bulbs lighting your house right now. The base, or socket, on this 19th century lamp is similar to the ones still used today.

It was one of the most important features of Edison’s lamp and electrical system.

The label on this bulb reads, “New Type Edison Lamp. Patented Jan. 27, 1880 OTHER EDISON PATENTS.”

Credit: https://www.fi.edu/history-resources/edisons-lightbulb

Try other ways… if the present method you’re using isn’t working.

Use another material, process, methodology until you get the exact thing you want…NEVER SETTLE FOR LESS.

You have not failed till you give up.

Champions never give up till they win.

No man was born a failure, its giving up that has produced failed results.

Failing is the pathway to success. Success is the last step of several processes that failed.

Don’t give up until you win!

I am Emmanuel Obani
…the 7StarGeneral

Saying: Be More!