Lighting Goes Digital

Computers have transformed our lives so completely that it's difficult to remember what life was like before the digital age. But only a few decades ago, people used typewriters for writing, and calculators solved math and money issues. You couldn't pull up an Internet browser to quickly find a random bit of information. Computers changed all that. When it comes to lighting, though, we're stuck in the past. The incandescent light bulb that you probably have in your bedside lamp is based on the same technology invented by Thomas Edison more than a century ago. Electricity flows into a metal filament, and the filament heats up and emits light as a byproduct.