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History of Technology Videos 160 videos
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History of Technology 1: We Want Better Lighting 35 Views
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Description:
What do we want? Better lighting! When do we want it? Mow! ...Wait, that might say "now." See, this is why we need better lighting.
Transcript
- 00:03
These days we don't know how to function without electricity seriously [Employee in a store standing by the counter as the lights cut out]
- 00:06
watch it yes people are scary people really are scary anyway without
- 00:11
electricity all the communication tools of our you know communication age
- 00:16
wouldn't work our smartphones laptops tablets and TVs would just be lifeless [Smartphones, laptops and TV's all dead on a table]
- 00:20
hunks of whatever cheap materials they made em out of in China and lots of
Full Transcript
- 00:25
electricity would affect more than just communication most of our appliances
- 00:29
gadgets and thingamabobs are powered by [Electric eel electrocutes a fish]
- 00:33
electricity. Blenders, toasters, vacuum cleaners and that annoying singing fish
- 00:37
on old people's walls you know the don't worry be happy' fish that thing. Each [Fish on a wall singing]
- 00:44
one needs electricity or needs to be smashed with a hammer but back in the
- 00:49
1890s people hadn't started to dream of all these crazy things yet the craze
- 00:54
back then with little simpler people wanted better lighting house not because [People in a poorly lit house walking into each other]
- 00:58
they wanted more flattering photos but because the lighting they had kind of
- 01:02
stunk in 1800s most cities burned coal gas for nighttime lighting. Four things we [Man burning coal outside]
- 01:07
hate about coal gas lamps then no that's not a weird sequel to 10 Things I Hate
- 01:12
About You. One: they were smoky and dirty Two: They had to be lit every night. Three:
- 01:18
they released toxic fumes. Four: they could explode at any time say what you will [Fumes bellowing into the air and a coal lamp explodes]
- 01:24
about that last one but it sure made bedtime story reading way more
- 01:27
exciting so yep the need for better lighting was pretty serious though
- 01:32
people got to work well the first electric light was called an arc lamp [An arc lamp dangling from the ceiling]
- 01:35
and it was fairly simple it took two conductive rods packed them in a glass
- 01:40
bulb with some gas and boom the electricity arc from one rod to the [Electricity moving from one rod to another in a glass bulb]
- 01:45
other the cons, arc lamps take up a bunch of power and while they don't last very
- 01:50
long still until late 1890s electric arc lamps were the only electric lighting in [Street of houses lighting goes out]
- 01:55
town then came incandescent bulbs about 23
- 02:00
different inventors came up with incandescent lightbulb before old Tommy
- 02:04
Edison that didn't stop Tommy E from putting the smackdown on all 23 of them [Edison smashing a green fist onto a table]
- 02:09
his design trumped the others in practical usefulness
- 02:13
Edison's bulb worked like this; electricity first traveled up a wire in
- 02:17
the glass bulb and then move through something called a filament the curly
- 02:21
part of the lightbulb and here's a fun light bulb surprise the filament is made [Lightbulb highlighting the filament]
- 02:26
of material that doesn't conduct electricity very well when the
- 02:31
electricity meets this resistance some of it turns into heat and light and that's
- 02:36
how Edison said let there be light kind of had a god complex [Edison preaching by a church window]
- 02:40
but Tommy's ego aside the lightbulb changed modern lighting forever and it
- 02:45
makes bedtime stories way safer [Girl turns bedside lamp on]
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