Word: lightbulb
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...those life-changing books," says Erik Knutzen, 44, an eco-blogger in Los Angeles. "You read it, and the lightbulb just goes on." Now he eschews his porcelain potty for a big bucket with a toilet seat. He "flushes" by tossing in a scoop of sawdust, which not only neutralizes smells but also helps speed the breakdown of material for compost. Like many back-to-basics sophisticates, he believes Jenkins' humanure system is more sanitary and more rational than the conventional alternative. "Human waste is a perfectly good source of an important resource, nitrogen," Knutzen observes. "Water is a valuable...
...lightbulb went off the day I realized that while recycling is great, if someone is able to reuse the stuff you no longer want, like your old sofa, you're keeping not just a 100-lb. sofa out of a landfill but also 20 to 40 times that in the raw materials needed to make a new sofa...
...this year's Best Inventions package, green innovations dominate the selection in a way that no single category has ever done in the 10 years we've been making this list. There's a smart thermostat, solar shingles, the new Philips lightbulb, the edible race car, electric bacteria, lots of electric vehicles and farm-raised bluefin tuna. The remarkable ingenuity shown in the hunt for new materials and products that don't stress the environment is reflected in our list, once again ably edited by senior writer Lev Grossman. One glowing exception to the trend is our invention...
Though Edison is usually cited as the father of the lightbulb, it's more accurate to give Edison credit as the creator of the first commercially viable lightbulb. As early as 1820, inventors were homing in on the principles that would lead to the first electric illumination. An English inventor, Joseph Swan, took their early work and developed the basis of the modern electric lightbulb in 1879 - a thin paper or metal filament surrounded by a glass-enclosed vacuum. When electricity runs through the filament, the bulb glows. Edison refined the design, trying filaments made out of platinum and cotton...
...development of the lightbulb sparked the spread of electric power in the U.S. Edison was behind the creation of the first commercial power plant in 1882; New York City had electricity 10 years later. By the late 1930s, the Rural Electrification Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, had delivered electric lighting to nearly every corner of the country. Development on the bulb didn't stop either: researchers have modified Edison and Swan's design further, refining the filament by using tungsten and filling the vacuum with gas, both of which increase the life span...