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"""Watt's engine was more a redesign more than an invention. Edison's notebook reveals that he tried thousands of filament materials before alighting by chance
by toolslive 11y ago
"""Watt's engine was more a redesign more than an invention. Edison's notebook reveals that he tried thousands of filament materials before alighting by chance on his favoured material. """
Why isn't Edison's Light bulb not considered a redesign as well?
Edison himself called it "Improvement In Electric Lights" in the patent he filed in 1878.
- jacquesm 11y agoBecause beyond using electricity lightbulbs and carbon arc lights have little in common.
- alephnil 11y agoOnce you have electricity, you will soon discover two things. First that a thin conductor will be heated when you pass electricity through resistive heating, and secondly, that it will soon burn, melt or vaporize after a short time if you heat it enough to produce any significant amount of light. In other words, the initial idea came from a quite basic fact about electricity, and Humphry Davy experimented with it already around 1800, but a lot of trial and failure had to be done before it could be used for practical lighting. Edison did enough research to come up with a practical one. He was not the only one, and others, including Joseph Swan made practical light bulbs at about the same time. Even this seemingly revolutionary idea was really more trial and failure than anything else.
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoI believe it is considered a redesign, or incremental improvement by most people, and the article is trying to imply that but without just repeating the phrase it just used.
- ratsmack 11y agoAnd I believe the these incremental improvements are being stifled by the current patent situation, unfortunately.