The Idiots Guide
Sometimes it's about "ADULTING" enough for the day, and other times it's about Keeping a job, Feeding the family, Educating the kids, and Buying the stuff.
Most of us were taught how to read, write, and math good.
But never taught how to file taxes, change a tire, or cook a meal.
How in the world have we survived?
Well, have no fear, the Idiots are here to guide you.
We don't know much more about all the stuff but we might be just a little further down the road than you.
Make no mistake, most of our advice is more like don't try this at home.
Hope it helps!
The Idiots Guide
What If The Lights Go Out? Untangling Edison Ep72 TIG
Discover the untold story behind one of history's brightest innovations as we unravel the true origins of the modern light bulb. Was Thomas Edison the genius we all believe him to be, or did Joseph Swan shine the light on this groundbreaking invention first? Join us, Adam Richardson, the Profit Hacker, and Joe Haslam, as we explore how Edison's financial prowess allowed him to eclipse Swan's work, mirroring today's capitalistic narratives where money often speaks louder than innovation itself.
Take a stroll down memory lane with us as we recall the evolution of lighting technology, from the scorching heat of incandescent bulbs that melted our favorite toys, to the cool efficiency of today's LED marvels. We'll walk you through the glowing history of fluorescent and halogen bulbs, each leaving their mark on our world. Witness how these advancements not only lit up our homes but redefined our daily lives, making darkness a thing of the past.
Artificial lighting has transformed society in unimaginable ways, turning cities into ever-awake giants and extending our productive hours. Yet, with great light comes great responsibility—such as acknowledging the impact of light pollution on our natural nightscapes. We'll shine a light on both the benefits and drawbacks of our illuminated world, before wrapping things up with a touch of humor. Don’t miss our jokes with Joe, designed to brighten your day just like a perfectly timed punchline. We hope you'll find our discussion illuminating!
Today on the Idiot's Guide, we are diving into one of the most illuminating inventions in history the light bulb. It's easy to take for granted, but for the simple act of flipping a switch, click. That changed the way we live, we work and dream. But how do we go from lamps, from gas lamps, to Thomas Edison's breakthrough, to the modern LED lighting, up of you know your favorite TikTok videos on your phone? And what's the true societal impact of having light on demand? In today's episode, we're exploring the invention of the light bulb, its evolution into modern lighting and how this glowing invention transforms society as we know it. Ready, let's light it up.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, mr Joe Haslam. Welcome to the Idiot's Guide, all right, so, as we were discussing kind of before this episode, I think there's some tension we need to kind of air out before we make much progress in it. Before we make much progress in it, because you know I think you know my outline and my research I am aware of what the tension is that Thomas Edison tries to, tries to take all the credit for this. Basically, yeah, and honestly, if you had a bunch of money and was able to hire the smartest engineers on earth, scientists, whatever you want and then, because of that, you just, at that point, take all the credit for it all because you're a great employer. Is that too different from modern?
Speaker 2:day capitalism. No, no, I mean edison was a great capitalist. I mean he was able to hire people to make stuff for him and then he took all the credit for it, which he gets paid for, right, yeah, and then he markets it and makes money that allows him to hire more people.
Speaker 2:Or if he can't hire people to invent this stuff, he just goes to the original inventor, buys the patent from them and pretends that he was the one that made it. He owns the patent, so he was the one. We talked about this with weed whackers and all those things. Some of these things are patents that you sell the patent to someone else and now you have it. So I mean, he was very, very good at fooling people the public, into thinking that he was a genius, Kind of like someone else we know in society today. I'm not going to name names, but you know, you know when, when it comes to things like electric cars, it does seem like there's someone today that has the same kind of idea of you know, paying for patents and acting like he's a genius.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm curious if you're, if you're talking about someone that I might know, I guess the one thing that comes to mind is there's this guy that has a car named after uh, you know, a scientist in history that has to do with electricity, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, but I mean, but we're talking about edison right here, so you know, we'll get back to talking about edison, just potato potato some modern dayday similarities to Edison. And Tesla was one of Edison's you know counterparts in his day, so Tesla did a lot of great work and Edison took some credit for some of Tesla's work, I think the one who ended up basically getting the short end of the stick was you said, swan right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Joseph Swan invented the light bulb as we know it today at least 10 years before Edison Okay, long, long before Now. Technology hadn't caught up yet, and so the vacuum tube system wasn't great, the filaments that he was working with weren't great, the methodology just wasn't quite there. But as time went on, he kept fiddling with it and changing, and technology improved, and, coincidentally, the same year that Edison had his miraculous breakthrough in creating the light bulb was the same year that Swan did and filed a patent for it. You know, so wild. And then Edison patented his light bulb. That didn't actually work. And then, after it was patented a few years later, he tested another filament and found oh hey, this one works even better. I got it now Interesting, and so it was. And at that point he bought Swan's patent and became the inventor of the light bulb.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we can agree that that's a form of capitalism. Okay, so we can agree that that's a form of capitalism and it might not be the most ethical or most friendliest way, but when you get your name in the history books because of it, I suppose that was the achievement, the legacy that you built. The victors write the history. Okay. So the way I think about this is possibly some of the pushback of our societal change to accepting something like electricity in general. Now we're playing with electricity to illuminate things instead of it just being gas lanterns and that kind of stuff, or gas light streets. You know the original gas lighting, you know the original gaslighting, but the, I guess, maybe the resiliency to stand up against that change.
Speaker 1:I don't know Swan's, you know financial position in the world. I just know that Edison had the financial backing of investors. That really, you know, we're trying to help push this, much like our modern elements do, and in that there's always going to be people. We talked about this in the last one, the good old Luddites and how there's this resistance to going away from the traditional means to light up a house or light up a street light or a street side and that kind of stuff. So you're introducing some things that Edison had the financial backing to withstand the pressure that society might be pushing back against it and that I don't know Swan's situation or position to where that could have been his case as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, if we want to add. I mean, Edison was no dummy. I mean you do have to give him credit, not for his inventions he did not invent that stuff but you can give him credit as a great businessman. He was great at marketing, he was great at convincing people. He as a great businessman, he was great at marketing, he was great at convincing people. He was a great businessman.
Speaker 2:So if we want to give Edison true credit for what he did, it was not the inventions that he supposedly made, it was the ability to take other people's inventions, because inventors are generally not good at business, they're inventors people's inventions, because inventors are generally not good at business, they're inventors. They're focused on what's next, what's new, all this stuff. And so he took that and he was able to market it. Now he did that in a very unhealthy capitalist way and a lot of the inventors never got credit for it and things like that. So I mean there's a lot of detraction in my opinion on Edison, but he was a great businessman and he was able to market, he was able to push, he was able to convince people to use the inventions that he found.
Speaker 1:It's interesting to think like I think it's like somewhere over a thousand or something like that, of the of the different things that Edison, you know, has a patent or owns the patent for, something like yeah, you know, he, he, yeah, 1093 patents were the product, the product of teamwork basically. So his, his teams that he had put together with scientists and whatnot were, were that element. But I think one of the things that I would say this is you know, back in the day, when they didn't have AutoCAD, they didn't have a bunch of customer service reps sitting on a computer making sure that the wireframe mainframe network for wiring to replace the gas lines that fed the lanterns in the street and now replace them with light bulbs electric light bulbs First in. Is that Rosalie or Roselle, new Jersey? I bet somebody in New Jersey is like that's it.
Speaker 1:But you know, honestly, like the gas lit streets of America, that was kind of the revolution of that. I don't know if that's necessarily like a thing that I can attribute back to Swan, but I would say that that's not, you know, Edison's brain it's probably his team that said you know, let's work together, how can we find a more efficient way of doing this and spreading out the electricity? And that was kind of the birth of the network, or the net of electricity that we still use to this day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and that's exactly it. I mean, it's the same thing with, like, gas vehicles. Most people don't know that electric vehicles are not a new technology. Right, you know, electric vehicles were actually more popular back in, when vehicles were first being introduced. They were more popular and every rich person had an electric car.
Speaker 1:All the kids wanted power wheels back in the 80s. They still do.
Speaker 2:But the gas and using gasoline was marketed to be the better option, and so they built an infrastructure of gas stations where you could go anywhere and fill up your car with gas. And it's the same kind of thing is that when you produce the infrastructure, then the technology, the adoption of the technology, follows. We see that today, with the lack of infrastructure for electric vehicles, they're not going to go anywhere. As that infrastructure builds, then, yes, we will have more electric vehicles, but until we actually have the infrastructure, it's not there. And that's again what Edison did really well. He built the infrastructure because he had tons of money from taking other people's inventions and selling them, and so now he was able to build the infrastructure and convince people to change.
Speaker 2:And I mean it's marketing. That is what marketing does. We see that in everything that we do every day. You know that's why things are popular is because it's all marketing. You know the, the stanley cups is that what they were? The, the mugs, the big popular, okay, stanley cups. Stanley cups have been around for a while before and they are nothing special. Rabbit, nothing special.
Speaker 1:There's a new lawsuit out for them because they keep exploding and blowing up into people's faces. There you go, but Stanley Cubs Video of people getting injured by it. So I'm like, oh wow, that's terrible.
Speaker 2:Stanley Cubs went viral. All these things, they go viral. Steve Jobs, this was his capability. You think about the popularity of the iPhone? That was because Steve Jobs was amazing at marketing. He could get anyone to buy such a simple product by hyping it up and making it sound fantastic. Yeah, you know. You think about the difference between Apple and Microsoft. You know Apple was great at marketing when Steve Jobs was there. Take out Steve Jobs. Microsoft has an opportunity to step in and they became the popular one. Steve Jobs comes back, microsoft hits the curb and now Apple is the big one. It's all about marketing. Microsoft was never good at marketing, but Apple was, and so Apple became the popular product, and so it's this idea. And then they had the money because of the marketing. Now they can do better products, et cetera. That's all it is with the light bulb and Edison.
Speaker 1:You know, what's interesting is like we've we've shifted in our society to not even recognize that everything we do I mean you walk into a room, you flip on a switch- that's what you're doing.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh, it's dark in here, click it on, like you don't think any element of this long history and debate and challenge and everything that's been overcome and the evolution of what that light bulb consists of, you know, um, some of some light bulbs are, I mean, even it's it's stylistically. I have two light bulbs in my house that look like old light bulbs. I've had them for gosh seven years and they're like huge filament giant bulb. I'm like that would not last seven years if it was an original. Yeah, I think the bulb is actually made of plastic.
Speaker 1:You know, like all those sorts of things, it's just effective the way that they've done this. But you know to, as an accent, now they're still trying to kind of, you know, decorate your house with something that looks vintage, that isn't, but still carries that. You still carries that cool look, but the modern technology of light bulbs. But, seeing that we are very dependent on lights, our set here that we're sitting in is extremely lit. There's light everywhere around us, right here and in order for us, I have to position them so that they get the right light on us while we're talking and we blank out all of the natural light.
Speaker 1:Yep yeah, so I you know from from the very first time that a house basically gets electrified, and you know, and, and cities get electrified, and you, you've you this grid which Edison is credited for the first power station, basically in New York, and then the lanterns or the streetlights in New Jersey. But the idea is that I think we just take it for granted. We don't really recognize how dependent we are on light every day. Our cars, we have headlights, we have lamps inside of our car, we're getting in, we open it up, we want lights inside there.
Speaker 1:My lights don't work when I open my car door, it drives me nuts because I have to turn them on if I need to, like, adjust something. And so when I open up the door and I'm like I've got to see if I did, I did, I get every like I got up to all these groceries or something like that. No, I have to reach in, turn the light on, check, you know, and then make sure I remember to shut it off. But it's this like, even that little tiny light bulb is like something that's goes back this far in history and it's not something that we really put a lot of thought into usually.
Speaker 2:So we have light bulbs on our phones. Yeah, everywhere we go we've got a flashlight. Yep, and yeah, it's. Everything we do now is based on that artificial light, and none of that exists without electricity. Yeah, without the grid, without everything.
Speaker 1:we have to keep it moving forward to keep us in light and so, before we shine a light on the next point, let me ask you a quick favor. If you're enjoying this episode and learning something new, hopefully hit that like button. It helps more people discover the channel. And don't forget to subscribe so you'll never be left in the dark about our future episodes. Your support means the world. Let's keep the conversation glowing. Wow, is that terrible.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awful, I like glowing.
Speaker 1:Glowing kind of like the glow of a, the nice glow of a light bulb no, no, no. Glowing kind of like the glow of a, the nice glow of a light bulb no, no, no, no. Whatever, hater, yep, okay. So now we transition and let's say you know our, our, our old, old-fashioned like the vintage light bulbs probably one of the biggest things that you run into is they get really hot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember back in the day I had a light, just a light bulb, that was in like a um, oh, like a desk lamp or something like a night, not a like a nightstand, the lamp on there like, and that light bulb got so hot like, oh my gosh, one time I uh had my sister's barbie and I stuck her head to the light bulb and it melted all of her hair to the light bulb like every strand.
Speaker 1:So we had to like cut her head so she had this like flat top it was our it was late 80s, so I was like it's all right, it's yeah but I learned a lesson Light bulbs are super duper hot and that's like, honestly, it's weird, because you think about how it becomes this, I don't know Is it, is it the incandescence or that's an incandescent? Basically, is the ones that are really hot, right, yeah, okay. Then you have the, the invention. You know halfway through the 20th century that you're talking fluorescence and halogens. Halogens are really hot too, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're talking you don't want to touch these. That one that would burn the Barbie's hair. I don't want to touch it because I'm going to burn my hand. And they always talk about that where you're like oh, it was crazy, because growing up if I screwed one of those light bulbs in, it was almost instantly. That's how fast those filaments in the light bulb were really lighting up and heating up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, the heat was what was, was I mean the electrical current through it was. It was a really inefficient system because it's running a current through a filament and so it's it gives off light, but it also gives off a ton of heat, right, and so you're losing a huge amount of energy just to heat loss, and so just really really inefficient. But it worked right and also really low light. It did not produce a lot of light lumens were really low on those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you're talking like you can pick, especially in those and they're they're, they're much more efficient now because obviously you have new, new, more modern technology. But but even as those improved, they got less, you know, hot. They weren't as hot as they used to be. But then, like fluorescent bulbs, like office lights, you go in and you turn the office light on or like whatever you know. Um, some homes have, like in garages or whatever. It is a lot of times, um, or I see most of the fluorescence, like in office spaces, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Well then you've got the neons, and then every store, everywhere.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think of, like the application of a halogen bulb. Halogens are more like baseball fields, yeah so halogens were super powered. Super.
Speaker 2:Hot, but super powered Used to be garages is where I knew them to be used the most like uh garages, big big garages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a lot of those were. You'd turn those halogens on and they were they would. They wouldn't turn on instantly. If I remember correctly, you had to like they slowly heated up, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you could see the entire neighborhood with one light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you'd sit there and once it's hot, man that thing, you don't want to look at it because it's going to burn a hole in your eyeball. Oh yeah, and so like that's okay, sure, like a little bit more energy efficient. I suppose the draw on a fluorescent bulb was not nearly the draw that an incandescent was, because you're talking one solid electrical current that you're visibly able to see, basically in a light bulb, right?
Speaker 1:And then the fluorescent is what you're talking when you're seeing like the long white, or you know Seeing the long white or basically that strip of light that has a gas inside. I can't remember what the gas is.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure what the gas is. But, yeah, that's the idea. It's heating up the gas that produces the same neon light. Well, to fluoresce is to glow, oh darn. And so a neon light has neon gas in there, and so that's why it glows, and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, anyway. So that's where it uses a more efficient method rather than just running it through a coil. Halogens are like a fluorescent bulb on steroids, yeah, and so it produces a lot more heat, but it's no more efficient than a light bulb. It just lasts longer at a higher intensity, yeah, and so that's where those came in, and probably now our most energy efficient is the LED.
Speaker 1:Yeah, led is in everything in in this studio space. What is lighting up this entire room right now is leds. All of them are led, and you know what led stands for? Uh, no, electric dot something, something. No, no, light emitting diode, that's okay.
Speaker 2:Pretty self-explanatory yeah.
Speaker 1:It was so I think you know, having I don't even know like I a diode to reduce the energy output from the wire, but making sure that when you encase it in the light, the light has a like like. It's like a combination of the filament that's in a, in a fluorescent, and, uh, and the incandescent lighting encasement really condensed down and that's a reactive element. Yeah and so, and you have something that, like those things, have no, no heat off of them. And the only problem that I run into this cause I have led lights in my bedroom is they take so little electricity that if I go and I've been working like I walk and I'm wearing socks and I go into my room, let's say I pull the light off the wall and I'm wearing socks, walk through my carpeting and I go up and I take the wires, it will light them up. There's enough static electricity on me to light up a little light of LEDs.
Speaker 1:And they're super bright. Like I have dimmer switches on mine but they like there's enough of a bad. My house is built old enough that the ground is not solid you know the grounding in my house and so I have this light nightlight in my house or my room, because I can't ever shut my bedroom light off. It doesn't turn off. Oh, so it's always there and like that's not a big deal.
Speaker 2:Like I bought them on amazon so I was like yay, this is cool, but also extra radiation going on in your house I just have a little extra static electricity hanging out, uh-huh, um, you know, probably not code, but don't admit that I'd probably get that checked for radon or something there's, there's, there's radiation emitting somewhere, um, but yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:So the, the leds are significantly more efficient. Uh, so they take much less power. They lose, and the reason they take much less power is because they're not losing anything to heat. Now there is some heat loss, but, uh, so little heat loss that it takes a lot less energy to get the same amount of light out of it, and so much more efficient, much better, uh, and you significantly reduce the risk of your Christmas tree catching on fire because of your incandescent bulbs. Yeah, so now it's just a nice Christmas tree, you don't have to worry about it burning up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think, the idea of energy consumption. You know when you get smacked because you left the light on when you were a kid and I think that you know nowadays it's not nearly as bad of a deal. Yeah, even in just the standard light bulb they've transitioned that to sometimes filament, like fluorescent style where it has the little tube inside of it fluorescent style where it has the little tube inside of it. Or um, or, as well now, led tech, where they're they look like, shaped like that. Right, I have a front porch light that has, you know, the rain, all all the array of colors that you can do. I can customize it for Christmas and Halloween and all that, but but it's all.
Speaker 1:I have an app that tells me how to do that on my led screen, lcd, um, but anyway, like it's, it's this idea that, like the efficiency of that has zero power. Draw like literally to to run it. Yeah, and it'll run, for you know I? I think what's? What's the capacity? Usually they say that it's like eight, eight to ten years longer. Oh, yeah, traditional bulb oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I mean you've got your, your note up there on the thing. If you, I mean with solar powered led on top of that, I mean you're not using any electricity at all, you know you're, you're getting the solar power and then you're powering those lights and there's no output from the electrical grid to run simple LEDs.
Speaker 1:I have solar motion lights around my property. So when one is right outside of my back door, my dogs, I let them out and as soon as they walk out I don't turn on my porch light. I have a really bright LED porch light so I don't do that one because it lights up the neighbor's house, you know. So I let that one turn the little solar power one, and it's first thing in the morning. So it's been sitting in the dark all night long but it hasn't been used. So once they come out, all of a sudden that lights up and it lights up all of my back walkway and all that kind of stuff. I'm like that's perfect. I'm one there, one on my driveway, you know, and it's just handy. I like I just screwed it into the wall and I'm like done, yeah super easy.
Speaker 2:So but yeah, all this tech is just it's. It is so effective at making our life better. You know, and yeah I mean now we have technology where there's no extra heat loss. It's super cheap to run because it doesn't take any power, or hardly any power. If you've got the solar stuff, it takes no electricity other than the solar and you're good to go.
Speaker 1:And we've become so used to it and so tied to it that to lose it would just be devastating yeah, so I think you know the some of the other things is like led tech, um, even some like I I don't know if it applies the same, but like laser tech. Some of the elements of how to harness some of lighting and use of lighting is what? Is it infrared or something like that, or infrared lighting?
Speaker 2:Like TVs or whatever.
Speaker 1:No, I don't know if it's necessarily TVs, but, like medical-wise, I go to a chiropractor that uses like a infrared laser treatment thing. Infrared laser treatment yeah, yeah, it's warm, that's nice, um, but other than other than the, the thing you're about to make, bunk um I won't go into that, but yes, we use lasers.
Speaker 2:I mean laser light shows, for you know, yeah, uh, trans-siberian Orchestra concerts.
Speaker 1:I think it's just interesting to think like to to stand back and go. What if we didn't have it? What?
Speaker 2:if we didn't have the lights.
Speaker 1:Like what if we were still gas lanterns or kerosene lanterns?
Speaker 2:I'd be in a much darker world. Yeah, duh, well, all the carbon, all the you know, just not having as much light, all the carbon emissions, all that, that stuff, it would just be a darker, darker world yeah, I was trying to think about, like what did?
Speaker 1:how did they do the gas lanterns back in the day? Like what? I didn't know what gas would. They were, because, if you go far enough back at, spoil lanterns and they had to go around and light the oil lanterns. Not, like you know, city lights in New Jersey would have had a piping system, piping gas to those lanterns or those lights. But that even going like okay, how are they refining that gas? Like that's a maybe a different topic for a different time. Yeah, but my brain went there I was like, hmm, we're finding that gas, like that, that's a maybe a different topic for a different time. Yeah, but my brain went there I was like, hmm, and now we're replacing it with this, with the effort to make it more efficient, and you see that perpetually over the years and over history in the last 140 years it's really done a good job. Well, 220 years, sorry, because the 1800 was, uh, the the light bulb, early or early late 1700s, um, anyway, no, it's 1870s.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's 150 years ago.
Speaker 1:150 years, okay so I, I, I guess for me. I just think about how that's really progressed and that you're right. It would be a really dark age if we just still were dependent on this other form of energy that was contaminating our earth because of our overusage of it. We still overuse it, All right. So let's take a quick moment to talk about something that's just as illuminating as a light bulb your financial future.
Speaker 1:If you've ever felt like your finances are stuck in the dark, our financial empowerment membership is here to light the way. With tools, insights and supportive community, we'll help you take control of your money and make it work for you. Whether you're starting out or looking to optimize your financial game, this membership is your power. Switch to financial freedom. Check out the link in the show notes to join today or link in the description, I suppose and start brightening your financial journey today. Now back to the show. All right, so how have we gone from? You know, I guess let's cover some advantages to this continuous availability of light. You know, when we use something like gas in a lantern, or I think about you know even even as a light bulb, a flashlight, would eventually run out of energy.
Speaker 1:Right, it would run out of power and you wouldn't have it anymore. But being that, our society, if you're connected to the grid is is normally, uh, going, unless there's some kind of power outage. You have 24 7 operation of power, yeah, and so with that you can turn your nights, rather than it being a function that you just go to bed and wake up the next day and take on the world when the sun's up. You know, now we go.
Speaker 1:Well, now you can do everything all the time, not stop Sounds like a terrible idea to me because you're going to need sleep sometime, but I think one of the things that that really looks at is, you know, night I think about. I've done a night shift, I've worked nights and although they're not fun, they are possible. Yeah and uh, I I was actually. I I was a night shift as a mechanic for a diesel shop, so I was working doing automotive or diesel repairs on trucks in the middle of 3 am in the morning, kind of stuff. You know I also did a, I did a stint at Amazon, you know like, but I did that, and when I was there, like there, there they had big halogen lights in the, in the, in the ceiling, lighten up everything, and they were. That was substantial, that was a big operation, but that's machinery and everything running constantly lit up the whole place all night long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is no such thing as night anymore.
Speaker 1:No, you talk about Vegas or New York when they reference cities that don't sleep and honestly, I think that there's a lot of cities that really start behaving that way. You go towards California. Cities don't sleep Denver.
Speaker 2:Anywhere you go. If you've ever done a drive at night, so a road trip, you know you're getting close to a city because there's this dome of light that you see in the distance and you know you're getting close. It doesn't matter what city it is. That's when you know you're getting close to a city and any city that you go to, any city that will be there. You will always have it. So I mean even small cities like Denver or Salt Lake or anything like that. You will always have that dome of light over that city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was traveling here, like even down south, traveling through the mountain ranges and coming up on the next city, and I was like, oh man, that glow is like and it wasn't even like a big town, it was just this little thing and I was like, wow, that's lighting up the whole ridgeline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and everything is always lit. Lit. You've always got the streetlights, you've got the businesses, you've got the neons for the food or the hotels or anything like that. Those are always on, and so it's always lit and it's just. I mean it's, there are always people up, there's always someone doing something.
Speaker 1:And I think there's benefits to that in our society, because there are services that need to be available 24-7. Yeah, because if other people are awake, things like accidents can happen. So you want a hospital to be having its lights on Right, you want somebody awake ready to respond to something like that. You want a first thing in the morning trip on your diesel truck, and I've got to work on it. All those sorts of things are what made it possible for us not to have to just okay, lights are out because the sun's down, so I can't do anything else. This torch that I'm holding here is not going to cut it, so it really made our society have an additional 12 hours of time that it could use each day.
Speaker 1:But I also think about underserved parts of the world that that now are introduced. With that I mean like no, I'm not, I wouldn't say now, now, but you know, for the most part there's a lot of areas in our. Majority of the world has some form of electricity. You know, obviously there's probably third world country areas that don't Right, but but generally speaking, even there you have people walking around with smartphones. Yeah, so you're like you still have light sources that are happening there and a lot of that saying like, okay, well, even if that was all you had and you had a grid to plug it in, you couldn't really get like too much more than that.
Speaker 1:You have the ability to, you know, shine a light on reading material, educational material, all that kind of stuff. So the advancement not doesn't just shine a light on the availability to get a job done, it advances our society and in learning capabilities. So yeah, and medical help, and you know just culturally. Oh yeah, and medical help and you know just culturally things like neon art and that kind of stuff. Just it's crazy to think that some, sometimes even some, of the biggest depictions are just giant, giant light features. Light light structures, I mean, are in New York. The ball that drops is just a light ball. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:A ball of light that just falls from the top of whatever tower yeah, yeah, I think one of the biggest problems, though, is the light pollution. So I mean, even talking about the uh, you know the dome over any city. You know anywhere you go. If you go, try to see the stars, or anything like that. If you're close to a city, you're not going to be able to see it because the light pollution not nearly. Yeah, I mean, even if you're close to a city, you're not going to be able to see it because of light pollution.
Speaker 1:Not nearly, yeah. I mean, even if you go to like a small town, you're still struggling with the light pollution at this point. But yeah, go to the middle of nowhere when it's pitch black and that sky is breathtaking.
Speaker 2:It is, it is amazing. But yeah, and so I mean there's some downsides to the technology that we have. I don't think they outweigh the positives. You know the great advancements that we have, but you know there is a give and take with any kind of technology yeah, even the light bulb, yep.
Speaker 1:I think that there's some initiatives out there that are trying to do this. I don't know how effective it's going to be, but I think one element is I think of, behaviorally or biologically sometimes we use lights to help grow plants, sometimes we use lights for different colors of lights to help us sleep, while other colors of lights to help us sleep, while other colors of lights help us or would keep us awake. And so if you have either one of those in the middle of your sleep, in the middle of the night, it's going to affect how you sleep. Even a tiny little blinking light is going to affect how you sleep. You won't notice it until later. You're going to have some kind of you know, all of a sudden I'm really stressed out, I don't know what's going on, and now you're seeing a therapist because you have a stupid light blinking in your bedroom. You know, I'm not going to say it's going that far, but I think that there's a program called dark sky. I'm not really sure too much about it, so I'm not going to go onto it, but it's the you know aims to really kind of go after.
Speaker 1:What is light pollution? What is the things that were affected by light and how can we reduce those things? By finding alternative measures. So let's flick a switch on today's episode one more time. We started with the groundbreaking invention of the light bulb. Mr Swan should be credited for this. Be credited for this. Explored how lighting was has has evolved from incandescence to leds, and discussed how artificial light has transformed society, from work to leisure to the environment. Here's the big question how can we balance our use of light to maximize its benefits while minimizing its downsides? Maybe it's as simple as appreciating the light we have, or turning off a few switches to enjoy the stars, you know? Here's a question is what's? What's your favorite way to use light creatively in your life? Is it puppets on a wall or, you know, is it light brights, light brights oh, those are fantastic. Oh, yes, gotta love the light brights.
Speaker 2:I think they're making a comeback.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are, you can get them. They're good Christmas gifts, definitely. Ah, there you go. And how do you think the evolution of light will shape our future? What's next? We have one of the most efficient bulbs, but that probably started with the incandescence. But you know, those being one of the most efficient bulbs, I'm like no, that will burn the crap out of your hand.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, what's next after the LED? Yeah, Is there something else?
Speaker 1:You know, I think about fiber optics because I've seen those carry light, you know, and it's really crazy, I don't know. It's just, it's fascinating to think, to look back at it all, see its evolution and how far we've come, and yet that's just tapping into it. Yeah, so I'm excited, all right well time for jokes with joe.
Speaker 2:All right, here we go. All right, what did one snowman say to the other?
Speaker 1:do I snow you? No, no, okay, sorry, that was terrible what you want to know.
Speaker 2:Do you smell carrots?
Speaker 1:I love that one that was. That was good. That was good. We've reached the end of our show for today. Don't forget to subscribe to like to comment, if you want. Thanks for listening, thanks for watching. Life's too short, so keep laughing, keep learning and remember idiots have way more fun. Check your shoes.