10.4. Lesson 93: Do It Better
Thomas Edison was not the only electric light experimenter to realize that the glowing filament of the electric lamp had to burn in a vacuum to avoid the rapidly destructive effects of oxidation. He emulated others in using a pump to evacuate the bulb, but he decided that the better the vacuum the longer the filament would burn. Unlike most of his competitors, he had a laboratory workshop so well equipped and so well staffed that he could afford to take the time to develop superb vacuum pump technology that far surpassed the prevailing state of the art. This represented no original principle or profound advance on existing principles, but it did give him the winning edge for developing a commercially viable electric ...
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