But Langmuir's research had told him that a filament wound in a tight coil would shed much less heat. So he created that tiny tight coil of a filament you've seen in broken light bulbs. Wise's point is that Langmuir was able to look at one product and then carry what he learned over to another product. We have the bright argon-filled bulbs we use today all because Langmuir was put to work on the much larger heating elements in stoves and irons. Of course he's leading us back to a common inventive process.
Good engineers make one thing turn into another.
They let invention be driven by whatever is there. So, I suppose, it's little surprise that Langmuir went on from light bulbs to win the 1932 Nobel Prize for related work on the surface chemistry of metals. Wise, G. Heat Transfer Research in General Electric. Examples of the Product Driven Innovation Cycle. This is a greatly revised version of Episode 145.