Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-01

BEGINNING today and to continue
nretty well through the Summer, cleo
tricians throughout the world WIZ COM
r,enoorate the achievements of Thomas
A edison in Harvesting electricity and
setting 1t to work for civilization.
Fffty-two years CO., Mr., EDISON
brought illumination by electricity 10 a
practical success. What marveis nave
resulted from electric lighting are isl
more familiar TO the pubic IMAM IS tne
memory of the great struggle preceding
the success. .or
Ordinarily one thinks of an inventor
as a eame who Just cunningly THINKS
o,t, things-and so there they are.
Wonderfully clever and all that, nut
With not much connection with iaro
Ia hor Ant, in Edison's work there was
ard,Io,,s labor. not for himself alone
hut. for many associates IN his employ
There was his laboratory, AND In al
dition there were research travellers eH-
nloring the world to find a hber winch
could be carbonized and then heaeo
~incandescent until 1t Wouia n ILL
ord remain shining without burning
away. tt may be quite simple TO-DAY,
at. least to persons engaged In electrlcal
work-but 1t was mystery unsolved III
those laws of the Winter OF 1879-6O-
half a century ago.
X X X n
TODAY. in~candescent electric lighting
is worldwide in use: 1t succeeds ana
supersedes all other forms OF
ton. vet within the memory OF mldole
aged men and women 1t was still an
experiment - especially i~ncandescent
lighting-in their youth.
Now what q range 1t has covered!
The scientific astronomer uses a current
of electrical heat so delicate that IL
measures the temperature of a par
ticular spot on an invisible star by
twisting a section of a wing OF a ny. SO
that it reflects q beam on a graduated
scale. In Chicago, there is being con-
structed an electric light tower to guide
aviators, which throws a beam brighter
than the direct sunbeams-a beam
visible 500 miles away. Neither of these
extremes was possible until Mr.. Ed
sons explorers found the right material
with which he at last constructed his
first ~incandescent light. s.
Mr.. Edison does not claim to have
been the first to conceive the possibility
of an electric light. Few inventions are
absolutely original with the inventors
who first make them practical. Leo
nardo da Vinci demonstrated the scien-
tific formula for flying, centuries before
the Wright brothers scared at Kitty
Hawk.
Even after MI. Edison had completed
his early success with his incandeScent
light it was scoffed at and sneered at by
leaders in science. Prof. Morton of
Stevens Institute of Technology de-
livered a pessimistic scientific" lecture,
exposing its failure to mark any ad-
vance, in which he declared:
mo line of original discovery marks
the electric light. Long before the days
of this presumptuous claimant the veXed
problem of incandescent electric light
ing had received practical solution at
the hands of our best scientists"
Yet. up to the time of Edison's sue
cess, such lighting had never been &C
complished except as a rare laboratory
test, SO costly that it wa an impossible
ity from a practical standpoint. Not
until Edison had experimental upon
some 5000 different fibers, some found
by his explorers in China and some in
South America, was any material dis
covered that could be carbonized and
then made incandescent without falling
to pieces like ashes at the least vibra-
ton.
So, with faith in his ultimate sue
cess. Edison's only reply to Prof. Nor
toms sheer was a threat that some day
ne WOulC erect n STATUE vi Moi GOI, W
be inscribed with the words. This is
the man who said the Edison electric
light would never work." and he would
frame the statue in an effulgence of the
new light. While his humorous threat
was never carried out, literally, 1t has
been far more than accomplished in
the effulgence of electric lighting of
the world. Was Edison's later activity
in behalf of the Navy during the World
War what suggested the Navy motto,
1T can't be done. but here 1t is?
y X y
The forcrunner of the Edison incan-
descent light was the work of Sir
Humphrey Davy. who invented the arc
light in 1912, with its arch of brilliance
spanning 4 inches, and capable of ex-
pansion TO 7 inches of great luminosity.
But 1t consumed the carbon points so
rapidly that it was almost constantly
spluttering and going cut. It required
'~Hss~gAss -s@e