FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread for 10.21.12

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with south winds five to ten mph, and a high of sixty-six.

On this day in 1879, Thomas Edison created a working electric light.  The New York Times reported his triumph:

There was no lack of enthusiasm or of confidence about Mr. Edison as he greeted the Times reporter who entered his laboratory at Menlo Park, N. J., yesterday. The inventor, a short, thick-set man, with grimy hands, led the way through his workshop, and willingly explained the distinctive features of what he and many others look upon as an apparatus which will soon cause gas-light to be a thing of the past.

The lamp which Mr. Edison regards as a crowning triumph is a model of simplicity and economy. In the lamp the light is emitted by a horseshoe of carbonized paper about two and a half inches long and the width of a thread. This horseshoe is in a glass globe, from which the air has been as thoroughly exhausted as science is able to do. So good a vacuum is produced that it is estimated that at the utmost no more than a one-millionth part of the air remains. The operation of pumping lasts one hour and a quarter.

At the ends of the carbon horseshoe are two platinum clamps, from which platinum wires run outwardly through a small glass tube contained within a larger one leading out of the glass globe. The small tube contains air. Within it the platinum wires are met by two copper wires connecting with the conductors of the electricity. The air is left in the small tube, because otherwise the copper wires would be fused by the electric current. The carbonized paper is capable of being made incandescent by a current of electricity, and while it allows the current to pass over it, its resistance to the heat is strong enough to prevent it from fusing.

Google’s daily puzzle ask about a place in New York: “What is the nickname of the area located east of Coney Island Beach and west of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn?”

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