How We Got to Now (2014–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Light - full transcript
The pioneers of light; Edison's light bulb; a French scientist accidentally discovers a neon light.
My exploration into
the chance encounters
and unexpected discoveries
that would bring light
to the world
begins in the bath.
We live in such a bright
and artificially lit world,
for many of us there's a desire
to return back
to a low-light environment.
And that's why, when we want
to relax,
we surround ourselves now
with an ancient technology:
the humble candle.
Candles provide the simplest
form of artificial light,
and we've been making them
for thousands of years.
Despite their ancient origins,
today they lie at the heart
of a multibillion-dollar
industry.
But that wasn't always
the case.
Today's sweet-smelling
aromatherapy candles
are symbols of luxury,
but just a few centuries ago,
candles would have had
the opposite effect.
Ordinary people made their own
candles in an arduous process
that involved rendering
rancid animal fat,
and when they finally
lit them up indoors,
they filled their rooms
with smoke and noxious fumes.
But all this was going
to change.
To create a light that was
both clean and bright
would take a chance encounter
in the most unlikely of places.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Back in 1659, here
on the island of Nantucket,
off the coast of Massachusett,
a group of English settlers set
up a small farming community.
But it was out at sea
they would make their name
in the story of light.
- Morning.
- Good morning, how are you?
- I'm good.
- Welcome aboard.
Thank you very much.
The farmers would soon discovr
a new source
of artificial light.
It may sound completely
bonkers,
but it lay within
the body of a whale.
What's the likelihood that
we're going to see something?
You never know.
It's a big ocean out there,
and depending on
how well, you know --
it's always good to have
a lot of eyes concentrating
on the horizon,
looking for spouts.
Whales were very common
in this area,
coming here to feed
in the nutrient-rich waters.
Today they're
a much rarer sight.
So whale watchers
are a superstitious bunch.
There's a ritual here that
the whale spotters like to use
to encourage the whales
to come out,
which is they throw a blue M&M
into the sea
to elicit the appearance
of the mighty beast.
So I'm going to do this.
This is actually
an historic tradition.
I believe there's a scene in
Moby-Dick where they do this.
All right, here we go.
All right, show yourselves!
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Okay, there we have a spout.
Oh, yeah, I see it!
Look at that, look at that!
There it is!
Big puffy plume
off the surface of the water.
- Oh, I see the spout again.
- Yep, very good.
- Now you've got the hang of it.
- I could have been a whaler!
- They have massive lungs.
- Yeah, look at that.
That vapor erupts from
their lungs.
Can you tell what kind
of whale it is?
Yep, in this case we can tell
it's a humpback whale.
Really?
This individual is more
than likely feeding.
Here it is diving.
Watch the tail floats go up...
and down underwater.
That is spectacular.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Before long the settlers
start hunting whales
like this humpback,
creating one of America's
first global industries.
The prize was the whale's
blubber,
which could be used
in everything
from soap and cosmetics
to lubricants and medicines.
But it took a crazy encounter
by a legendary Nantucketer
to bring a brand-new type
of light to the world.
On one fateful day in 1712,
the story goes
that a powerful nor'easter blew
Captain Hussey well out
into the deep waters
of the Atlantic,
out in this direction,
where he encountered
a species of whale
that had never been seen
before,
a giant leviathan of the deep:
the sperm whale.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Sperm whales are the largest
of the toothed whales,
growing to over 65 feet long,
and they can be fierce
and dangerous animals.
Legend has it that Hussey
would soon discover
these whales contained
a unique type of oil
not found in other species.
And it was this oil that would
go on to play a key role
in the story of light.
But first he had to risk
life and limb to catch one.
When a whale was spotted, they
would lower the whale boats,
they would get in and
they would start rowing,
six men in this boat.
When they get very close
to the whale,
then the harpooner
takes up his harpoon,
which looks like this.
They want to get really close
to the whale.
You can't throw it too far.
Okay, so, I mean,
you're just like 10 feet
from this giant beast?
- Or maybe even closer.
- Wow.
And then you just take up
that harpoon
and you try to actually
spear it, yes.
You're just hooking it.
Right, right, right.
So now the whale takes off
swimming
because he's been struck
by this harpoon.
And the line, which is
in this tub,
is now paying out very fast,
and you are racing
across the ocean
on the Nantucket sleigh ride.
That would have been some rid.
At the peak of the whaling
industry,
over 5,000 sperm whales
were slaughtered each year.
Once they'd caught
and killed one,
the carcass was processed
out at sea.
It was here the whalers
uncovered something
truly bizarre that changed
the course of history.
When they hacked their way into
this creature's massive head,
they found something
they had never seen before:
a vast reservoir
of an oily substance,
over hundreds of gallons
of it.
They called it spermaceti
because of its resemblance
to seminal fluid.
Before long, spermaceti oil
would become
one of the most valuable
substances on the planet.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Extracting the spermaceti oil
is a revolting and laborious
business.
They made a hole on the top
of the head, and then they lower
the youngest, smallest person
onboard,
who's probably
a 14-year-old cabin boy,
into the head of the whale.
They put a kid inside
the whale's head.
Right. He comes out with
a bucket more of oil.
This whale's been dead
for days probably, right?
Probably, yeah.
It must have smelled
appalling.
It did.
It didn't take long
for some bright spark
to see if the spermaceti oil
would burn,
and this triggers a revolution
in artificial light.
Spermaceti oil burns with an
unusually white, bright light,
without odor or smoke.
It's actually twice as bright
as a traditional candle.
It's a simple design, really.
Just a wick suspended
in a reservoir of oil.
But spermaceti lamps
and candles quickly became
the most prized form
of artificial light
in Europe and in America.
The demand for spermaceti oil
goes through the roof,
pouring millions of dollars
into the American economy.
Eager to protect their profits,
the Nantucket tradesmen
come up with a brand-new
business idea,
and it's a practice still used
throughout the world today.
By the late 1700s,
spermaceti processing factories
have sprouted up
all over Nantucket
and even into the mainland.
And the owners get together
and form
the United Company
of Spermaceti Chandlers,
and the organization
gives them the power
to keep newcomers
from entering the market,
and it also enables them
to keep Nantucket whalers
from artificially raising
the price of oil.
It's one of the first examples
of monopolies
and price-fixing on record.
Spermaceti oil
not only transforms
the way we light our world,
it helps create innovations
in the most surprising
of places.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It's by the light
of spermaceti lamps
that great authors
like Benjamin Franklin
and Thomas Jefferson
and Jane Austen
write their greatest works.
During the 1800s,
it's spermaceti oil
that lubes the steam engines
and locomotives
of the Industrial Revolution.
And it was still used
in the gearboxes
of American automatic cars
up until 1972.
And because it stays liquid
even at subzero temperatures,
an urban myth took root
that it was used
in the Apollo 11 mission
to land on the moon.
Once we had bright lights
like spermaceti lamps,
there's an immediate impact
on our lives.
It meant we didn't go to bed
at sundown,
we could stay up longer,
do our chores later
into the evening,
and even read a book
at bedtime.
But it's not all good news.
All this extra light
messes with our sleep.
Are you having trouble
sleeping, Steven?
You know, it's funny, I am.
That's weird.
Can you explain
why this is?
- It's actually quite natural.
- Really?
Yeah. Until the advent
of artificial lighting,
people all over the world --
rich and poor,
north and south --
they tended to sleep
in two phases each night.
They referred to their first
sleep and their second sleep.
And so they'd sleep
for how long?
People would sleep
for a number of hours,
and then wake up sometime
around midnight,
usually for an hour or two.
And what would they do
during that time?
Well, according to records,
some people broke the law.
It was an opportunity
to get up
and pilfer from the neighbors.
I like it, pilfering
in the middle of the night.
Yeah, people relieve
themselves,
they looked after children
or livestock.
Without being too explicit
about this, the advice was,
do not conceive a child
before your first sleep
when you're both exhausted
from the day's labor.
Wait until between the first
and second sleep,
when you're already rested.
That's the ideal time
to conceive a healthy child.
With artificial lighting,
the fact we could stay up later
meant our natural
two-sleep pattern
was squeezed into
one single sleep.
[ toilet flushes ]
But now many of us suffer
from insomnia.
It's not unnatural to wake up
in the middle of the night.
So insomnia, in a way,
is our body
kind of reverting back
to that older rhythm.
Yeah, the exposure
to artificial light
has physiological effects,
but we are going to fall back
and wake up every now and then
in the middle of the night,
and there's just nothing
wrong with it.
All right, I feel a lot better
about my insomnia.
I'm going to try and get
a little more shut-eye.
Perfectly natural.
All right, will you turn off
the light?
[ ♪♪♪ ]
By the 1800s, our fascination
with artificial light
had created a melting pot
of inventions and ideas.
But before you shout out
"light bulb,"
there's one other dazzling
innovation
I want to explore
from this time period,
and it would once again
change the course of history.
The very poor were
increasingly living
in the dark slums
of America's growing cities.
One man made it his mission
to shine light
on their wretched lives.
It would take a flash
of inspiration
for the next step
in the journey of light.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
That man was journalist
Jacob Riis.
In the late 1800s
here in New York City,
Riis would write a new chapter
in the story of light.
He creates a source of light
so bright,
it allows him to capture
an image
and change people's minds.
[ sirens blaring
and horn honking ]
Riis is investigating
a slum district
called Five Points
in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
It's home to poor immigrants
who'd come chasing
the American dream.
With half a million people
living in just 15,000 tenement
buildings,
neighborhoods like Five Points
are among the most densely
populated places on Earth.
Riis is himself an immigrant,
and so the squalor
he finds here appalls him.
He starts taking
late-night walks
through the back alleys
and streets of Five Points,
peering into the lives
of the people there.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
These cramped, dark,
unsanitary hovels
are cesspits for disease
and squalor,
far removed from the day-to-day
lives of most Americans.
Here's Riis in his own words:
"The sights I saw there
gripped my heart
until I felt that I must tell
of them or burst
or turn anarchist
or something."
Riis bangs out reports
for newspapers and magazines,
but his words fail to arouse
public interest.
He wants to share
with middle America
the lives of real people
from the slums.
Maybe a photograph would help.
Photography at this point
is an experimental technology.
Each photograph required
a single plate,
and they could be expensive.
And they weren't
very sensitive,
so exposure times were
extremely long,
even in good light.
So this is Riis' big problem.
He wants to photograph inside
the tenement apartments,
but they're simply too dark.
What he needs is a bright,
portable light source.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Throughout the 1800s,
photographers try
all sorts of ways
to light their photos.
A breakthrough comes with
a metal called magnesium.
All you really have to do
is set it on fire.
As you can see, it generates
a bright light,
but it's not very stable,
and the fumes are really
unpleasant.
But then, in 1887,
two pyromaniacs from Germany
grind up the magnesium
and add it to gunpowder.
This produces an explosive
solution.
They call it Blitzlichtpulver,
literally "flashlight powder."
Riis notices a small, four-line
article in his morning paper
all about this new flash
photography phenomenon
from Germany.
News of Blitzlicht
has crossed the Atlantic.
Could this be the innovation
Riis has been waiting for?
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Riis heads back down
into the dark tenement hovels,
now armed with the Blitzlicht
flash powder.
He wants to try to light up
his nighttime images,
but it's a tricky
and dangerous process.
All right, so what do we need
to do to light this thing up?
- We need a flash gun.
- I'm excited and terrified.
So this is a flash gun?
This is a flash gun
right here.
That sounds dangerous already.
Okay.
It is dangerous, of course,
in the wrong hands.
Now, watch, we're going to put
the cap inside.
- Don't push that button.
- Okay. I won't, I promise.
Now, this is black powder.
Black powder is a form
of gunpowder.
My kids would love this.
If this is what you needed
to take photographs,
they would take photographs
all day long.
They just like
blowing things up.
In order to get a more white
flash, we add magnesium.
I keep feeling like this is
about to blow up in my face.
[ laughs ]
So that's the magnesium.
That's what's going to give
the white light.
The powder underneath
really kind of propels it.
I'm going to suit you up.
Nothing can go wrong now.
I've got an apron on!
I look like some kind
of deranged butcher.
- Hold it up above your head.
- Right.
If it's above your head and
the wind is blowing that way,
you won't burn your hair.
Oh, I see. Right.
It's going to be up
about like that.
Keep it level.
So that's it.
So now you're ready to fire.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Riis wants to photograph
the people in the tenements
unposed and spontaneous,
so he sets off unannounced
into the slums after midnight.
And you can imagine how
surprising it must have been
for these people when a stranger
walks into their home
and sets off a small explosion.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
[ thunder rumbles ]
Many of the occupants
are left dazed and confused.
One account recalls,
"A blinding flash,
the patter
of retreating footsteps,
and the mysterious visitors
were gone."
You can see how
it was dangerous work.
Riis actually nearly blinded
himself once,
and on several occasions,
he actually set fire
to the tenements
he was trying to photograph.
Riis said, "Our party carried
terror wherever it went."
But at least he gets
his photographs.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With a set of images
lit by flash,
Riis publishes his photos
in a book called
How the Other Half Lives.
He then goes
on a nationwide lecture trip,
projecting his photographs
to audiences
using another light device:
a newly devised type
of magic lantern.
JOHNSON: Jacob Riis would have
loved this, right?
Yeah, it's really special
to be able
to project his work
this large, this bright,
because, you know, he would use
a magic lantern,
- which has a candle inside.
- Right.
A candle is essentially
1 lumen,
so he would project his work
with 1 lumen,
and today we have
12,000 lumens.
It's so intense to be here
and see these images
of this neighborhood,
basically,
projected up on the screen.
It's kind of like we've created
the world's most depressing
PowerPoint presentation.
[ laughs ]
People are walking by
and shocked at these images.
Thanks to the innovations
of flash photography
and the magic lantern,
Riis takes this previously
invisible group of people
and makes them visible
on a mass scale.
It sets in motion a dramatic
change in public opinion,
triggering one of the great
movements of social reform
in American history.
Thanks to Riis,
many of the city's
worst tenement buildings
are torn down.
A decade of improvements
follows,
with sewers, garbage
collection,
and indoor plumbing.
Riis used his images
to share his vision
and changed the way
we see the world.
One century comes up with
a way to capture images
in a dimly lit room,
and by the next century
it has transformed the lives
of city dwellers everywhere.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
While the photographer's flash
could light a room
for a short, blinding moment,
people at this time still
relied on candles and lamps
to light their way after dark.
The buzz now was to create
a continuous and bright light
at the flick of a switch.
It was time for the first ever
light bulb moment.
So how many people does it take
to invent a light bulb?
You know the answer.
One, right?
Thomas Alva Edison.
Well, that's not
exactly true.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Decades before Edison
took an interest,
inventors from across
Europe and America
had experimented with
and patented
a range of designs
for electric light bulbs.
[ knocking ]
But the problem with these
early bulbs...
they didn't last
that long.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It wasn't until 1878,
almost 40 years after the first
patented light bulb,
that the stage is set
for the grand entrance
of Thomas Edison.
Edison was already
a media sensation.
What do you think?
I've got a little Edison
impersonation business
on the side.
He was dubbed a wizard
for being the first person
to record a voice
on a phonograph.
And now he sets his mind to
the problem of electric light.
And the first thing he does
is buy up
an existing Canadian patent.
Here's Edison in his own words:
"I am not impressed
by the great names
and reputations
of those who might be trying
to beat me to an invention.
It's their ideas
that appeal to me.
I'm quite correctly described
as more of a sponge
than an inventor."
[ ♪♪♪ ]
This might not sound like
the normal inventor mindset,
but by buying up patents,
Edison could build
on other people's already
existing designs.
People think that
by filing a patent,
they're going to be
automatically rich,
they're going to make
a lot of money,
but most patents end up
being worth
absolutely nothing.
It's the idea behind it
that's important.
In the case of the light bulb,
there are, you know,
dozens of patents,
people patenting parts
of the invention,
people patenting
the whole thing.
Many people have good ideas
that can contribute
to the development
of a major idea,
but they don't have
all of the vision,
all the skill set
necessary to do that.
So a smart person with
a bigger vision will come along
and buy up that portfolio
of patents
and then use them
to their advantage.
That's not uncommon
in today's technology world.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With his newly purchased
patent,
Edison reckons it will
only take him a few weeks
to create a long-lasting
light bulb...
but it's much harder
than he thought.
So what does he do?
Edison is a master of what
we now call vaporware,
announcing a nonexistent product
in order to scare off
competitors.
Basically, he lies.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Edison announces to the press
that he's succeeded
in inventing
the first long-life
electric light bulb
and encourages journalists
to come see it.
Edison invites each reporter,
one by one, into a booth
where he showcases his
miraculous new invention
and discusses the merits
of his design.
But only for a few minutes
max,
just long enough to ensure
that the bulb doesn't blow.
And then he ushers
the reporter out of the booth,
and then he goes in and screws
in a new light bulb
and brings the next guy in.
When asked how long
his light bulb will last,
he answers confidently,
"Forever... almost?"
[ ♪♪♪ ]
But now Edison has to make good
on his blatant lie.
Rather than work alone,
Edison employs the brightest
minds of the time.
He calls them his "muckers,"
and sets up the world's first
research and development lab.
On top of that, he creates
a new business model:
to give his staff
an extra incentive,
he awards them with shares
in the company.
The team try out over
6,000 different materials
for the light bulb filament.
Edison is even inspired
by his old fishing rod
and gets his muckers
to experiment
with stuff like bamboo.
It takes almost two years,
but they finally manage
to create
a long-lasting light bulb,
which burns for an incredible
1,200 hours.
The first public display
of Edison's incandescent light
happens on New Year's Eve,
1879.
Edison said,
"The electric light
has caused me
the greatest amount of study
and required the most
elaborate experiments."
Edison's light bulb is not
so much a single invention
as it is a collection of small
but ingenious improvements.
By 1880, electric light bulbs
go into mass production.
Edison announces that lighting
our homes now comes cheap.
With spermaceti oil lamps,
we got just seven hours
of light
for an average day's wage.
But with electric light bulbs,
it was 1,200 hours
for the same money.
Edison created
a new kind of workspace
that would prove crucial for
the next century's businesses:
the modern corporate
research and development lab.
And on top of that,
he inaugurated a tradition
that would be widely adopted
by the technology sector:
paying their employees in shares
and not just in cash.
In a sense, Edison didn't
just invent technology,
he also invented
a system of inventing
that would drive 20th-century
innovation.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It took a while for electric
light bulbs to take off
because most homes didn't have
a source of electricity.
But as our cities slowly began
to crackle with power,
Edison's influence spreads
far and wide.
Edison's light bulbs radically
change our work life,
creating the first
24-hour factories
and the innovation
of shift work.
This massively increases
productivity
right across the globe.
Electric streetlights
cause a drop in crime
and open the night
to the entertainment industry,
from music halls to the movie.
[ film reel clattering ]
And with our homes now bathed
in electric light,
it opens a door to other
electrical appliances:
the washing machine,
the vacuum cleaner,
the food mixer transform
the role of women,
halving the hours a housewife
spends on chores,
allowing many to enter
the national workforce.
[ typewriter keys clacking ]
While Edison and his R&D team
light our homes
and bring the world into
the age of electricity,
there's one arena Edison
actually failed to tackle
in his lifetime.
[ bat cracks and crowd
cheers ]
And that was to bring light
to sports.
Until the 1930s, professional
sporting events
like baseball games
were actually relatively
small-scale affairs.
The games had to be played
during daylight hours,
usually during the work week,
which meant that a big
professional baseball game
might only attract an audience
of a few thousand people.
To increase numbers,
games would have to be played
after work,
but that's when it got dark.
[ "Charge!" plays on organ ]
In his old age,
Edison dreamed
of lighting up large spaces
like this,
but it's not a simple task.
One of the biggest challenges
is there are players
all over the field.
The game is very
omnidirectional.
You never know which way
they're going to turn.
I mean, what made it
so difficult?
We have to put lights
all around the field
to make sure that
we minimize shadows.
And we have to make sure
we put them
in the appropriate place,
to not put them
in offending zones
of the batters and the players
so they truly don't get
blinded by light.
[ generators winding up ]
The man credited with the
solution is R.J. Swackhammer,
a lighting designer
for Edison's company,
General Electric.
It wasn't so much
a technological innovation.
It was more the precise
placement of floodlights
plus narrow-beamed spotlights
around the irregular-shaped
field,
creating an even distribution
of light.
[ crowd whistling and cheering ]
In May 1935,
the first Major League Baseball
game played under lights
was the Cincinnati Reds versus
the Philadelphia Phillies
with an evening crowd
of over 20,000 people.
So we're here at home plate,
we've got the lights on.
So I feel like
I'm pretty well lit.
Now what is it about
the lighting
that is so special
on me here?
Light's hitting
every side of you,
so no matter where
the people sit,
no matter where
the cameras stand,
you're rendered with light
on all sides.
That also helps
if you're a batter.
You can see the ball being lit
from left, right, forward,
and back.
You can see how it's turning
and whether or not
you should swing
low, high, left, or right.
And how much power is driving
this whole spectacle right now?
This is 1 megawatt,
1 million watts,
which costs about
$100 an hour to run,
where compared to
your typical house,
is about $100 per month.
Despite the obvious advantages
of lights,
not everyone was convinced
about lighting stadiums.
The president of one club
announced,
"There is no chance
night baseball
is going to become popular.
The game was meant to be played
in the lord's own sunshine."
[ crowd cheering ]
But soon sports stadiums
across the country
and around the world
are being fitted with lights.
[ shutter clicking
and bat cracks ]
The simple ability
to play at night
had some surprising
consequences.
Lighting up stadiums
effectively brought sports to
the masses on a global scale,
and it helped create
the national pastime
of spectator sports
from baseball to football
to basketball, all the way
to monster trucks.
And it turned sports
into a multibillion-dollar
entertainment industry.
[ cheering ]
Artificial light
may have started out
as a way for us to illuminate
our dark world,
but we now had the power
to use it just for fun.
Garage inventors could now
create lights
just to bring color and
excitement to our cities.
If there's one place on Earth
that's famous for its lights,
it's Las Vegas.
The city is lit up like
a Christmas tree,
and everywhere you look,
the vibrant glow of neon.
Now, the marriage of Sin City
to its gaudy neon lights
came about by a chance
encounter with the work
of a crazy French scientist.
That man was Georges Claude.
Claude is a chemist by trade,
but he cares less
for academic studies
and more for fantasy books.
Claude is an avid reader
of the early science-fiction
novels of Jules Verne,
whose tales of adventure
open his mind
to new possibilities.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
In 1902, working in Paris,
Claude makes an accidental
discovery
while studying the composition
of air.
[ rattling ]
Air was known to contain
around 78% nitrogen
plus 21% oxygen
and 1% "other."
It's in these "other" gases
where Claude's thirst for
mystery and his eye for a buck
collide in spectacular fashio.
So Claude has got all these
extra strange gases
lying around, and so, like any
self-respecting mad scientist,
he decides to pass a current
of electricity through them,
and one of those gases lights up
a vivid shade of red.
That gas turns out
to be neon.
[ buzzing ]
Neon gas itself was not
a new discovery,
but it had been mostly ignored
by other scientists.
The fact it glows brightly
when you pass electricity
through it
gives Claude an idea:
he invents and patents
the first neon tube light.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Claude decides to set up
a stall in the streets of Paris
to showcase his amazing new
electric light.
Neon! People...
you want some neon?
Word spreads
all around the world,
and before long
the orders are coming in,
and Claude can't meet
the demand.
Look at this glowing color!
You can make signs from it!
And so, to protect
his invention
and bring his product
to the market,
he decides to embrace
a new business model:
the franchise.
Franchises, and the
trade secrets they protect,
dominate the world
of commerce today.
It's how some of the very
best ideas go global.
I get chills any time
I talk about franchises.
- Really?
- I do.
Thank God we have you
on the show. That's great.
You may be the only person
in the world.
Well, I get chills about it
because it's one entrepreneur
saying to another entrepreneur,
"You don't have the money
to do this big company?
Buy into my idea.
Put a little money down,
start your own business,
and then pay me the equivalent
of a royalty
over a period of time."
When I was growing up,
you had all of these black men
who just had ideas,
but they couldn't get
the capital from the banks.
But yet they pooled together
all their money
to buy a McDonald's franchise
or to buy a Buick franchise
or a GM franchise,
and by opening up that,
they built wealth
in the community,
put their kids through school,
employed the community,
and the wealth just spread.
That was the most
impassioned speech
about franchises
I've ever heard.
I find franchises to be
great business models
when the underlying idea of it
is so powerful
that it captures the imagination
of an entire community,
if not a nation.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Back in 1920s Las Vegas,
Claude's neon light franchise
was picked up by an
entrepreneurial sign writer
called Tom Young.
Young's Electric Sign Company
still keeps Las Vegas alight
to this day.
I caught up with his grandson,
Jeff.
So what brought
your grandfather to Vegas?
My grandfather was born
in England
and immigrated as a young man
to Utah
and was a hand letterer
was his trade.
And early on he was travelling
through this area
to see family in California
and started selling signs
in Las Vegas.
How did he start thinking about
really lighting up the signs?
Light and energy were such
a big part of this area
because of the building
of Hoover Dam, and he thought,
"All that electricity,
there's going to be
an opportunity down there
to make some pretty
bright signs."
- Right, right.
- Yeah.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With a loan of $300, Young sets
up a sign writing company.
Later, he opens a branch
in the still-small town
of Las Vegas.
Tom Young brings a completely
new aesthetic and scale
to sign writing,
and at its heart
is neon lighting.
[ buzzing ]
These are some of the biggest
signs in the world here.
These I-beams
were just massive,
because it was supporting
a 260-foot display.
Our plastic fabrication
is back in this area.
We actually just shipped out
a giant flamingo
that's going downtown.
The scale is much bigger here
than you'll get anywhere else
in the world.
Caesars at 165 feet,
Mandalay, Mirage, Bellagio:
we've had involvement
with every casino
that you can think of
in Las Vegas.
This is our glass room.
I'll take you in there
and show you.
By using different color
glass tubes
and even different gases,
Young creates a rainbow
of bright colors.
JOHNSON: So for someone like
your grandfather in 1920,
what is it about neon that seems
so immediately useful?
Well, at the time, light bulbs,
you could turn them on and off,
but they didn't really
have color
and you couldn't bend them.
You get a tube of glass,
and you can bend it
virtually in any shape,
in virtually any color.
I mean, there was just
nothing like that anywhere,
and so it just took off
like wildfire.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It's a remarkable story
of how different ideas
and skills came together
to create something brand-new.
A new technology from France
collides with an immigrant sign
designer from England
in the middle of the American
Southwest.
Young realizes that neon
isn't just about light.
It could also be used
to make words.
It's one of those
chance encounters
that will ultimately transform
the look of an entire city.
Neon light becomes
the ultimate way to advertise.
Hotels and casinos use it
to lure people in.
The giant neon displays
are even seen as
a new form of art.
These lights inspire
a generation of architects
to abandon the sterile, serious
designs of Modernism
and embrace the playful,
symbolic excess
of the Las Vegas strip.
This is how change happens.
Scientists discover
a new kind of gas,
which creates an amazing
business opportunity,
which ultimately leads
to a new artistic movement,
and every step of that journey,
neon lit the way.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
People like Young
were now using light
to send out a bold,
bright message.
In the final chapter
in the story of light,
it would be used
not for illumination as such,
more as an industrial tool.
And this time as well,
inspiration didn't come
from scientists,
but from science fiction.
Just a minute!
Ladies and gentlemen, I think
something is happening.
[ ominous string music plays ]
From H.G. Wells in the 1800s
through to Flash Gordon
and Superman in the 1930s,
early sci-fi stories,
comic strips, and films
often used beams of light
to zap people.
[ laser buzzes ]
The innovation of what
came to be called the laser
didn't actually come about
in the real world
until the late 1950s
and early '60s.
Not for the first time,
the science-fiction writers
were well ahead
of the scientists.
When the laser finally
becomes reality,
its first mainstream use
isn't as a terrifying weapon,
but as something
a little less exciting:
[ beeps ]
scanning barcodes.
[ beeps ]
Barcodes were invented
back in the late '40s
by two grad students,
Bernard Silver
and Norman Woodland.
They'd overheard a shop owner
wanting a way to read product
information at the checkout.
Well, you'll want
one of this, sir.
Six pence a card.
Six pence, eh?
To read the barcodes originally
took a cumbersome device
inspired by a movie projector
and powered by a large
500-watt light bulb.
But with the invention
of the laser,
a different kind of light
was created.
It's very pure, made from
single colors of the spectrum,
and can be focused
to a narrow beam.
With a laser,
small, handheld scanners
were possible.
Okay, so it may not seem like
the sexiest of innovations,
but the ability to quickly
and efficiently scan barcodes
transformed retailing
all around the world.
Each transaction could be
recorded and tracked
into the supply chain,
which meant that you never
ran out of goods.
Big retail outlets were able
to maintain
vast inventories of goods,
which gave them
a critical advantage over
smaller mom-and-pop stores.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With barcodes
and laser scanners,
retail outlets ballooned
into the huge stores
that now dominate shopping
malls across the world.
Lasers effectively changed
the face of shopping.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Today, lasers have come
to enable
so much in our daily life.
Lasers transform the music
and movie industry
with the innovation of CDs
and DVDs,
and they make
an awesome stage show.
High-power lasers are behind
every journey we make.
They revolutionize construction
for transport,
with laser cutting, drilling,
and welding
used in building every car
and airplane.
And laser light transforms
global communications,
as nearly every telephone call,
email, and web search
is now carried as pulses
of light
through a system
of fiber optics.
Science fiction
might have given birth
to the idea of lasers,
but they're now an essential
tool in scientific research.
And if the old sci-fi fans
might have been disappointed
to see lasers used
for barcode scanning,
they'd be thrilled
to see
what scientists have planned
for them next.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
This is the Lawrence Livermore
National Ignition Facility
near San Francisco.
It's here that we can look
into the future story of light.
This is a high-security
facility.
I've been scanned
and swabbed and searched,
but I'm here because inside
this building,
scientists have created
the most powerful laser system
on the planet,
and the hope is that
they can use the light
to create not a death ray,
but instead a near limitless
supply of clean energy.
The goal here is
to use laser light
to power nuclear fusion,
the same process that drives
our sun and the stars.
The head man
is Mike Dunne.
The objective of this facility
is to try to reproduce,
in miniature, what's happening
at the center of the sun.
And how far along
in the process
towards that fusion goal
would you say you are?
We're still going through
the experimental journey.
And in fact, today there's
a major experiment under way
to see if we can get
to that next level.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
In the control room,
the team of scientists
and engineers are preparing
to fire the laser system.
When they flick the switch,
a single pulse of low-power
laser light
is sent off through
fiber optic cables.
But then, in this
cavernous room,
it gets split up into
192 separate laser beams,
and their power is amplified
4 million billion times,
reaching a total output
of 500,000 gigawatts.
The lasers then get routed down
to the basement,
to the fusion reaction chambe.
You know how you see something
that seems really futuristic,
and you're like, that looks like
something from Star Trek?
It's like, this actually was
from Star Trek.
DUNNE: This is the engine room
of the starship Enterprise.
It's incredible.
So this is the heart
of the whole facility,
where the laser beams
come down from above.
We focus each laser beam down
to a tiny point in space
about the width
of a human hair,
onto this fusion fuel.
That red dot inside
the fuel cell
is a tiny droplet
of frozen hydrogen.
When the laser beams strike i,
the hydrogen atoms
are converted into helium,
releasing lots of energy.
MAN OVER RADIO: Countdown
started, T-minus 270 seconds.
Back in the control room,
they're ready to fire.
[ alarms blaring in distance ]
So I can tell something very
important is going on in here,
because they've got
all these computers,
and not a single person
is checking Facebook.
[ laughs ]
MAN OVER RADIO: System shot
sequence ready, T-minus 30.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
[ man gives indistinct update ]
MAN OVER RADIO:
Copy.
System shot sequence
ready in T-minus
10, 9, 8, 7, 6,
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Shot.
- We're still alive.
- We are.
- So that's good.
- First good sign.
So what just happened?
For an instant in time,
about 100 trillionths
of a second, we created,
just over there, the hottest
place in the solar system.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
This facility is still
at the experimental stage,
but someday,
possibly very soon,
the world could be powered
by fusion energy
created by laser light.
The hope is that we can optimize
this laser system and the fuel
to get more energy coming
out of the fusion process
than the laser itself delivers.
And if you can harness that,
then you've got
an inherently clean,
inherently safe
form of energy
that will last for probably
a few million years.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
When you stand and look at
this extraordinary machine,
you really have to pause
for a second
and remind yourself
that just 200 years ago,
the state of the art
in artificial light
involved cutting up a whale
on the deck of a ship
in the middle of
the North Atlantic.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
But here we are today,
and we're creating miniature
suns on Earth.
This is the journey of light,
and it started as this attempt
to just read a book
before we went to bed...
[ crowd cheering ]
and then it became
a massive form of commerce,
and then it became
a form of advertising,
and then it became
a form of art,
and now we're in this room
trying to create
the next chapter
in the story of light.
What started as just
an attempt
to illuminate our lives
after dark
now may be the future of energy.
In the next episode,
I'm looking at how we got to
today's refrigerated world.
It took people like
the college dropout
who tried to ship
blocks of ice
cut from a frozen lake
in Boston to steamy Georgia...
Everywhere he goes,
the ice melts.
and a guy trying to feed
his family in the Arctic.
Imagine trying to live
the entire winter
on, like, moose jerky.
Discovering how
to make things cold
has changed our world
in many unexpected ways.
[ grinding noise ]
Oh, my God!
How We Got to Now
was made possi
the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
and by contributions
to your PBS station from...
[ ♪♪♪ ]
To learn more about
How We Got to Now,
visit us on the web at...
How We Got to Now
is available on DVD.
A companion book
is also available.
the chance encounters
and unexpected discoveries
that would bring light
to the world
begins in the bath.
We live in such a bright
and artificially lit world,
for many of us there's a desire
to return back
to a low-light environment.
And that's why, when we want
to relax,
we surround ourselves now
with an ancient technology:
the humble candle.
Candles provide the simplest
form of artificial light,
and we've been making them
for thousands of years.
Despite their ancient origins,
today they lie at the heart
of a multibillion-dollar
industry.
But that wasn't always
the case.
Today's sweet-smelling
aromatherapy candles
are symbols of luxury,
but just a few centuries ago,
candles would have had
the opposite effect.
Ordinary people made their own
candles in an arduous process
that involved rendering
rancid animal fat,
and when they finally
lit them up indoors,
they filled their rooms
with smoke and noxious fumes.
But all this was going
to change.
To create a light that was
both clean and bright
would take a chance encounter
in the most unlikely of places.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Back in 1659, here
on the island of Nantucket,
off the coast of Massachusett,
a group of English settlers set
up a small farming community.
But it was out at sea
they would make their name
in the story of light.
- Morning.
- Good morning, how are you?
- I'm good.
- Welcome aboard.
Thank you very much.
The farmers would soon discovr
a new source
of artificial light.
It may sound completely
bonkers,
but it lay within
the body of a whale.
What's the likelihood that
we're going to see something?
You never know.
It's a big ocean out there,
and depending on
how well, you know --
it's always good to have
a lot of eyes concentrating
on the horizon,
looking for spouts.
Whales were very common
in this area,
coming here to feed
in the nutrient-rich waters.
Today they're
a much rarer sight.
So whale watchers
are a superstitious bunch.
There's a ritual here that
the whale spotters like to use
to encourage the whales
to come out,
which is they throw a blue M&M
into the sea
to elicit the appearance
of the mighty beast.
So I'm going to do this.
This is actually
an historic tradition.
I believe there's a scene in
Moby-Dick where they do this.
All right, here we go.
All right, show yourselves!
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Okay, there we have a spout.
Oh, yeah, I see it!
Look at that, look at that!
There it is!
Big puffy plume
off the surface of the water.
- Oh, I see the spout again.
- Yep, very good.
- Now you've got the hang of it.
- I could have been a whaler!
- They have massive lungs.
- Yeah, look at that.
That vapor erupts from
their lungs.
Can you tell what kind
of whale it is?
Yep, in this case we can tell
it's a humpback whale.
Really?
This individual is more
than likely feeding.
Here it is diving.
Watch the tail floats go up...
and down underwater.
That is spectacular.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Before long the settlers
start hunting whales
like this humpback,
creating one of America's
first global industries.
The prize was the whale's
blubber,
which could be used
in everything
from soap and cosmetics
to lubricants and medicines.
But it took a crazy encounter
by a legendary Nantucketer
to bring a brand-new type
of light to the world.
On one fateful day in 1712,
the story goes
that a powerful nor'easter blew
Captain Hussey well out
into the deep waters
of the Atlantic,
out in this direction,
where he encountered
a species of whale
that had never been seen
before,
a giant leviathan of the deep:
the sperm whale.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Sperm whales are the largest
of the toothed whales,
growing to over 65 feet long,
and they can be fierce
and dangerous animals.
Legend has it that Hussey
would soon discover
these whales contained
a unique type of oil
not found in other species.
And it was this oil that would
go on to play a key role
in the story of light.
But first he had to risk
life and limb to catch one.
When a whale was spotted, they
would lower the whale boats,
they would get in and
they would start rowing,
six men in this boat.
When they get very close
to the whale,
then the harpooner
takes up his harpoon,
which looks like this.
They want to get really close
to the whale.
You can't throw it too far.
Okay, so, I mean,
you're just like 10 feet
from this giant beast?
- Or maybe even closer.
- Wow.
And then you just take up
that harpoon
and you try to actually
spear it, yes.
You're just hooking it.
Right, right, right.
So now the whale takes off
swimming
because he's been struck
by this harpoon.
And the line, which is
in this tub,
is now paying out very fast,
and you are racing
across the ocean
on the Nantucket sleigh ride.
That would have been some rid.
At the peak of the whaling
industry,
over 5,000 sperm whales
were slaughtered each year.
Once they'd caught
and killed one,
the carcass was processed
out at sea.
It was here the whalers
uncovered something
truly bizarre that changed
the course of history.
When they hacked their way into
this creature's massive head,
they found something
they had never seen before:
a vast reservoir
of an oily substance,
over hundreds of gallons
of it.
They called it spermaceti
because of its resemblance
to seminal fluid.
Before long, spermaceti oil
would become
one of the most valuable
substances on the planet.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Extracting the spermaceti oil
is a revolting and laborious
business.
They made a hole on the top
of the head, and then they lower
the youngest, smallest person
onboard,
who's probably
a 14-year-old cabin boy,
into the head of the whale.
They put a kid inside
the whale's head.
Right. He comes out with
a bucket more of oil.
This whale's been dead
for days probably, right?
Probably, yeah.
It must have smelled
appalling.
It did.
It didn't take long
for some bright spark
to see if the spermaceti oil
would burn,
and this triggers a revolution
in artificial light.
Spermaceti oil burns with an
unusually white, bright light,
without odor or smoke.
It's actually twice as bright
as a traditional candle.
It's a simple design, really.
Just a wick suspended
in a reservoir of oil.
But spermaceti lamps
and candles quickly became
the most prized form
of artificial light
in Europe and in America.
The demand for spermaceti oil
goes through the roof,
pouring millions of dollars
into the American economy.
Eager to protect their profits,
the Nantucket tradesmen
come up with a brand-new
business idea,
and it's a practice still used
throughout the world today.
By the late 1700s,
spermaceti processing factories
have sprouted up
all over Nantucket
and even into the mainland.
And the owners get together
and form
the United Company
of Spermaceti Chandlers,
and the organization
gives them the power
to keep newcomers
from entering the market,
and it also enables them
to keep Nantucket whalers
from artificially raising
the price of oil.
It's one of the first examples
of monopolies
and price-fixing on record.
Spermaceti oil
not only transforms
the way we light our world,
it helps create innovations
in the most surprising
of places.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It's by the light
of spermaceti lamps
that great authors
like Benjamin Franklin
and Thomas Jefferson
and Jane Austen
write their greatest works.
During the 1800s,
it's spermaceti oil
that lubes the steam engines
and locomotives
of the Industrial Revolution.
And it was still used
in the gearboxes
of American automatic cars
up until 1972.
And because it stays liquid
even at subzero temperatures,
an urban myth took root
that it was used
in the Apollo 11 mission
to land on the moon.
Once we had bright lights
like spermaceti lamps,
there's an immediate impact
on our lives.
It meant we didn't go to bed
at sundown,
we could stay up longer,
do our chores later
into the evening,
and even read a book
at bedtime.
But it's not all good news.
All this extra light
messes with our sleep.
Are you having trouble
sleeping, Steven?
You know, it's funny, I am.
That's weird.
Can you explain
why this is?
- It's actually quite natural.
- Really?
Yeah. Until the advent
of artificial lighting,
people all over the world --
rich and poor,
north and south --
they tended to sleep
in two phases each night.
They referred to their first
sleep and their second sleep.
And so they'd sleep
for how long?
People would sleep
for a number of hours,
and then wake up sometime
around midnight,
usually for an hour or two.
And what would they do
during that time?
Well, according to records,
some people broke the law.
It was an opportunity
to get up
and pilfer from the neighbors.
I like it, pilfering
in the middle of the night.
Yeah, people relieve
themselves,
they looked after children
or livestock.
Without being too explicit
about this, the advice was,
do not conceive a child
before your first sleep
when you're both exhausted
from the day's labor.
Wait until between the first
and second sleep,
when you're already rested.
That's the ideal time
to conceive a healthy child.
With artificial lighting,
the fact we could stay up later
meant our natural
two-sleep pattern
was squeezed into
one single sleep.
[ toilet flushes ]
But now many of us suffer
from insomnia.
It's not unnatural to wake up
in the middle of the night.
So insomnia, in a way,
is our body
kind of reverting back
to that older rhythm.
Yeah, the exposure
to artificial light
has physiological effects,
but we are going to fall back
and wake up every now and then
in the middle of the night,
and there's just nothing
wrong with it.
All right, I feel a lot better
about my insomnia.
I'm going to try and get
a little more shut-eye.
Perfectly natural.
All right, will you turn off
the light?
[ ♪♪♪ ]
By the 1800s, our fascination
with artificial light
had created a melting pot
of inventions and ideas.
But before you shout out
"light bulb,"
there's one other dazzling
innovation
I want to explore
from this time period,
and it would once again
change the course of history.
The very poor were
increasingly living
in the dark slums
of America's growing cities.
One man made it his mission
to shine light
on their wretched lives.
It would take a flash
of inspiration
for the next step
in the journey of light.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
That man was journalist
Jacob Riis.
In the late 1800s
here in New York City,
Riis would write a new chapter
in the story of light.
He creates a source of light
so bright,
it allows him to capture
an image
and change people's minds.
[ sirens blaring
and horn honking ]
Riis is investigating
a slum district
called Five Points
in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
It's home to poor immigrants
who'd come chasing
the American dream.
With half a million people
living in just 15,000 tenement
buildings,
neighborhoods like Five Points
are among the most densely
populated places on Earth.
Riis is himself an immigrant,
and so the squalor
he finds here appalls him.
He starts taking
late-night walks
through the back alleys
and streets of Five Points,
peering into the lives
of the people there.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
These cramped, dark,
unsanitary hovels
are cesspits for disease
and squalor,
far removed from the day-to-day
lives of most Americans.
Here's Riis in his own words:
"The sights I saw there
gripped my heart
until I felt that I must tell
of them or burst
or turn anarchist
or something."
Riis bangs out reports
for newspapers and magazines,
but his words fail to arouse
public interest.
He wants to share
with middle America
the lives of real people
from the slums.
Maybe a photograph would help.
Photography at this point
is an experimental technology.
Each photograph required
a single plate,
and they could be expensive.
And they weren't
very sensitive,
so exposure times were
extremely long,
even in good light.
So this is Riis' big problem.
He wants to photograph inside
the tenement apartments,
but they're simply too dark.
What he needs is a bright,
portable light source.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Throughout the 1800s,
photographers try
all sorts of ways
to light their photos.
A breakthrough comes with
a metal called magnesium.
All you really have to do
is set it on fire.
As you can see, it generates
a bright light,
but it's not very stable,
and the fumes are really
unpleasant.
But then, in 1887,
two pyromaniacs from Germany
grind up the magnesium
and add it to gunpowder.
This produces an explosive
solution.
They call it Blitzlichtpulver,
literally "flashlight powder."
Riis notices a small, four-line
article in his morning paper
all about this new flash
photography phenomenon
from Germany.
News of Blitzlicht
has crossed the Atlantic.
Could this be the innovation
Riis has been waiting for?
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Riis heads back down
into the dark tenement hovels,
now armed with the Blitzlicht
flash powder.
He wants to try to light up
his nighttime images,
but it's a tricky
and dangerous process.
All right, so what do we need
to do to light this thing up?
- We need a flash gun.
- I'm excited and terrified.
So this is a flash gun?
This is a flash gun
right here.
That sounds dangerous already.
Okay.
It is dangerous, of course,
in the wrong hands.
Now, watch, we're going to put
the cap inside.
- Don't push that button.
- Okay. I won't, I promise.
Now, this is black powder.
Black powder is a form
of gunpowder.
My kids would love this.
If this is what you needed
to take photographs,
they would take photographs
all day long.
They just like
blowing things up.
In order to get a more white
flash, we add magnesium.
I keep feeling like this is
about to blow up in my face.
[ laughs ]
So that's the magnesium.
That's what's going to give
the white light.
The powder underneath
really kind of propels it.
I'm going to suit you up.
Nothing can go wrong now.
I've got an apron on!
I look like some kind
of deranged butcher.
- Hold it up above your head.
- Right.
If it's above your head and
the wind is blowing that way,
you won't burn your hair.
Oh, I see. Right.
It's going to be up
about like that.
Keep it level.
So that's it.
So now you're ready to fire.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Riis wants to photograph
the people in the tenements
unposed and spontaneous,
so he sets off unannounced
into the slums after midnight.
And you can imagine how
surprising it must have been
for these people when a stranger
walks into their home
and sets off a small explosion.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
[ thunder rumbles ]
Many of the occupants
are left dazed and confused.
One account recalls,
"A blinding flash,
the patter
of retreating footsteps,
and the mysterious visitors
were gone."
You can see how
it was dangerous work.
Riis actually nearly blinded
himself once,
and on several occasions,
he actually set fire
to the tenements
he was trying to photograph.
Riis said, "Our party carried
terror wherever it went."
But at least he gets
his photographs.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With a set of images
lit by flash,
Riis publishes his photos
in a book called
How the Other Half Lives.
He then goes
on a nationwide lecture trip,
projecting his photographs
to audiences
using another light device:
a newly devised type
of magic lantern.
JOHNSON: Jacob Riis would have
loved this, right?
Yeah, it's really special
to be able
to project his work
this large, this bright,
because, you know, he would use
a magic lantern,
- which has a candle inside.
- Right.
A candle is essentially
1 lumen,
so he would project his work
with 1 lumen,
and today we have
12,000 lumens.
It's so intense to be here
and see these images
of this neighborhood,
basically,
projected up on the screen.
It's kind of like we've created
the world's most depressing
PowerPoint presentation.
[ laughs ]
People are walking by
and shocked at these images.
Thanks to the innovations
of flash photography
and the magic lantern,
Riis takes this previously
invisible group of people
and makes them visible
on a mass scale.
It sets in motion a dramatic
change in public opinion,
triggering one of the great
movements of social reform
in American history.
Thanks to Riis,
many of the city's
worst tenement buildings
are torn down.
A decade of improvements
follows,
with sewers, garbage
collection,
and indoor plumbing.
Riis used his images
to share his vision
and changed the way
we see the world.
One century comes up with
a way to capture images
in a dimly lit room,
and by the next century
it has transformed the lives
of city dwellers everywhere.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
While the photographer's flash
could light a room
for a short, blinding moment,
people at this time still
relied on candles and lamps
to light their way after dark.
The buzz now was to create
a continuous and bright light
at the flick of a switch.
It was time for the first ever
light bulb moment.
So how many people does it take
to invent a light bulb?
You know the answer.
One, right?
Thomas Alva Edison.
Well, that's not
exactly true.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Decades before Edison
took an interest,
inventors from across
Europe and America
had experimented with
and patented
a range of designs
for electric light bulbs.
[ knocking ]
But the problem with these
early bulbs...
they didn't last
that long.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It wasn't until 1878,
almost 40 years after the first
patented light bulb,
that the stage is set
for the grand entrance
of Thomas Edison.
Edison was already
a media sensation.
What do you think?
I've got a little Edison
impersonation business
on the side.
He was dubbed a wizard
for being the first person
to record a voice
on a phonograph.
And now he sets his mind to
the problem of electric light.
And the first thing he does
is buy up
an existing Canadian patent.
Here's Edison in his own words:
"I am not impressed
by the great names
and reputations
of those who might be trying
to beat me to an invention.
It's their ideas
that appeal to me.
I'm quite correctly described
as more of a sponge
than an inventor."
[ ♪♪♪ ]
This might not sound like
the normal inventor mindset,
but by buying up patents,
Edison could build
on other people's already
existing designs.
People think that
by filing a patent,
they're going to be
automatically rich,
they're going to make
a lot of money,
but most patents end up
being worth
absolutely nothing.
It's the idea behind it
that's important.
In the case of the light bulb,
there are, you know,
dozens of patents,
people patenting parts
of the invention,
people patenting
the whole thing.
Many people have good ideas
that can contribute
to the development
of a major idea,
but they don't have
all of the vision,
all the skill set
necessary to do that.
So a smart person with
a bigger vision will come along
and buy up that portfolio
of patents
and then use them
to their advantage.
That's not uncommon
in today's technology world.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With his newly purchased
patent,
Edison reckons it will
only take him a few weeks
to create a long-lasting
light bulb...
but it's much harder
than he thought.
So what does he do?
Edison is a master of what
we now call vaporware,
announcing a nonexistent product
in order to scare off
competitors.
Basically, he lies.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Edison announces to the press
that he's succeeded
in inventing
the first long-life
electric light bulb
and encourages journalists
to come see it.
Edison invites each reporter,
one by one, into a booth
where he showcases his
miraculous new invention
and discusses the merits
of his design.
But only for a few minutes
max,
just long enough to ensure
that the bulb doesn't blow.
And then he ushers
the reporter out of the booth,
and then he goes in and screws
in a new light bulb
and brings the next guy in.
When asked how long
his light bulb will last,
he answers confidently,
"Forever... almost?"
[ ♪♪♪ ]
But now Edison has to make good
on his blatant lie.
Rather than work alone,
Edison employs the brightest
minds of the time.
He calls them his "muckers,"
and sets up the world's first
research and development lab.
On top of that, he creates
a new business model:
to give his staff
an extra incentive,
he awards them with shares
in the company.
The team try out over
6,000 different materials
for the light bulb filament.
Edison is even inspired
by his old fishing rod
and gets his muckers
to experiment
with stuff like bamboo.
It takes almost two years,
but they finally manage
to create
a long-lasting light bulb,
which burns for an incredible
1,200 hours.
The first public display
of Edison's incandescent light
happens on New Year's Eve,
1879.
Edison said,
"The electric light
has caused me
the greatest amount of study
and required the most
elaborate experiments."
Edison's light bulb is not
so much a single invention
as it is a collection of small
but ingenious improvements.
By 1880, electric light bulbs
go into mass production.
Edison announces that lighting
our homes now comes cheap.
With spermaceti oil lamps,
we got just seven hours
of light
for an average day's wage.
But with electric light bulbs,
it was 1,200 hours
for the same money.
Edison created
a new kind of workspace
that would prove crucial for
the next century's businesses:
the modern corporate
research and development lab.
And on top of that,
he inaugurated a tradition
that would be widely adopted
by the technology sector:
paying their employees in shares
and not just in cash.
In a sense, Edison didn't
just invent technology,
he also invented
a system of inventing
that would drive 20th-century
innovation.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It took a while for electric
light bulbs to take off
because most homes didn't have
a source of electricity.
But as our cities slowly began
to crackle with power,
Edison's influence spreads
far and wide.
Edison's light bulbs radically
change our work life,
creating the first
24-hour factories
and the innovation
of shift work.
This massively increases
productivity
right across the globe.
Electric streetlights
cause a drop in crime
and open the night
to the entertainment industry,
from music halls to the movie.
[ film reel clattering ]
And with our homes now bathed
in electric light,
it opens a door to other
electrical appliances:
the washing machine,
the vacuum cleaner,
the food mixer transform
the role of women,
halving the hours a housewife
spends on chores,
allowing many to enter
the national workforce.
[ typewriter keys clacking ]
While Edison and his R&D team
light our homes
and bring the world into
the age of electricity,
there's one arena Edison
actually failed to tackle
in his lifetime.
[ bat cracks and crowd
cheers ]
And that was to bring light
to sports.
Until the 1930s, professional
sporting events
like baseball games
were actually relatively
small-scale affairs.
The games had to be played
during daylight hours,
usually during the work week,
which meant that a big
professional baseball game
might only attract an audience
of a few thousand people.
To increase numbers,
games would have to be played
after work,
but that's when it got dark.
[ "Charge!" plays on organ ]
In his old age,
Edison dreamed
of lighting up large spaces
like this,
but it's not a simple task.
One of the biggest challenges
is there are players
all over the field.
The game is very
omnidirectional.
You never know which way
they're going to turn.
I mean, what made it
so difficult?
We have to put lights
all around the field
to make sure that
we minimize shadows.
And we have to make sure
we put them
in the appropriate place,
to not put them
in offending zones
of the batters and the players
so they truly don't get
blinded by light.
[ generators winding up ]
The man credited with the
solution is R.J. Swackhammer,
a lighting designer
for Edison's company,
General Electric.
It wasn't so much
a technological innovation.
It was more the precise
placement of floodlights
plus narrow-beamed spotlights
around the irregular-shaped
field,
creating an even distribution
of light.
[ crowd whistling and cheering ]
In May 1935,
the first Major League Baseball
game played under lights
was the Cincinnati Reds versus
the Philadelphia Phillies
with an evening crowd
of over 20,000 people.
So we're here at home plate,
we've got the lights on.
So I feel like
I'm pretty well lit.
Now what is it about
the lighting
that is so special
on me here?
Light's hitting
every side of you,
so no matter where
the people sit,
no matter where
the cameras stand,
you're rendered with light
on all sides.
That also helps
if you're a batter.
You can see the ball being lit
from left, right, forward,
and back.
You can see how it's turning
and whether or not
you should swing
low, high, left, or right.
And how much power is driving
this whole spectacle right now?
This is 1 megawatt,
1 million watts,
which costs about
$100 an hour to run,
where compared to
your typical house,
is about $100 per month.
Despite the obvious advantages
of lights,
not everyone was convinced
about lighting stadiums.
The president of one club
announced,
"There is no chance
night baseball
is going to become popular.
The game was meant to be played
in the lord's own sunshine."
[ crowd cheering ]
But soon sports stadiums
across the country
and around the world
are being fitted with lights.
[ shutter clicking
and bat cracks ]
The simple ability
to play at night
had some surprising
consequences.
Lighting up stadiums
effectively brought sports to
the masses on a global scale,
and it helped create
the national pastime
of spectator sports
from baseball to football
to basketball, all the way
to monster trucks.
And it turned sports
into a multibillion-dollar
entertainment industry.
[ cheering ]
Artificial light
may have started out
as a way for us to illuminate
our dark world,
but we now had the power
to use it just for fun.
Garage inventors could now
create lights
just to bring color and
excitement to our cities.
If there's one place on Earth
that's famous for its lights,
it's Las Vegas.
The city is lit up like
a Christmas tree,
and everywhere you look,
the vibrant glow of neon.
Now, the marriage of Sin City
to its gaudy neon lights
came about by a chance
encounter with the work
of a crazy French scientist.
That man was Georges Claude.
Claude is a chemist by trade,
but he cares less
for academic studies
and more for fantasy books.
Claude is an avid reader
of the early science-fiction
novels of Jules Verne,
whose tales of adventure
open his mind
to new possibilities.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
In 1902, working in Paris,
Claude makes an accidental
discovery
while studying the composition
of air.
[ rattling ]
Air was known to contain
around 78% nitrogen
plus 21% oxygen
and 1% "other."
It's in these "other" gases
where Claude's thirst for
mystery and his eye for a buck
collide in spectacular fashio.
So Claude has got all these
extra strange gases
lying around, and so, like any
self-respecting mad scientist,
he decides to pass a current
of electricity through them,
and one of those gases lights up
a vivid shade of red.
That gas turns out
to be neon.
[ buzzing ]
Neon gas itself was not
a new discovery,
but it had been mostly ignored
by other scientists.
The fact it glows brightly
when you pass electricity
through it
gives Claude an idea:
he invents and patents
the first neon tube light.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Claude decides to set up
a stall in the streets of Paris
to showcase his amazing new
electric light.
Neon! People...
you want some neon?
Word spreads
all around the world,
and before long
the orders are coming in,
and Claude can't meet
the demand.
Look at this glowing color!
You can make signs from it!
And so, to protect
his invention
and bring his product
to the market,
he decides to embrace
a new business model:
the franchise.
Franchises, and the
trade secrets they protect,
dominate the world
of commerce today.
It's how some of the very
best ideas go global.
I get chills any time
I talk about franchises.
- Really?
- I do.
Thank God we have you
on the show. That's great.
You may be the only person
in the world.
Well, I get chills about it
because it's one entrepreneur
saying to another entrepreneur,
"You don't have the money
to do this big company?
Buy into my idea.
Put a little money down,
start your own business,
and then pay me the equivalent
of a royalty
over a period of time."
When I was growing up,
you had all of these black men
who just had ideas,
but they couldn't get
the capital from the banks.
But yet they pooled together
all their money
to buy a McDonald's franchise
or to buy a Buick franchise
or a GM franchise,
and by opening up that,
they built wealth
in the community,
put their kids through school,
employed the community,
and the wealth just spread.
That was the most
impassioned speech
about franchises
I've ever heard.
I find franchises to be
great business models
when the underlying idea of it
is so powerful
that it captures the imagination
of an entire community,
if not a nation.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Back in 1920s Las Vegas,
Claude's neon light franchise
was picked up by an
entrepreneurial sign writer
called Tom Young.
Young's Electric Sign Company
still keeps Las Vegas alight
to this day.
I caught up with his grandson,
Jeff.
So what brought
your grandfather to Vegas?
My grandfather was born
in England
and immigrated as a young man
to Utah
and was a hand letterer
was his trade.
And early on he was travelling
through this area
to see family in California
and started selling signs
in Las Vegas.
How did he start thinking about
really lighting up the signs?
Light and energy were such
a big part of this area
because of the building
of Hoover Dam, and he thought,
"All that electricity,
there's going to be
an opportunity down there
to make some pretty
bright signs."
- Right, right.
- Yeah.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With a loan of $300, Young sets
up a sign writing company.
Later, he opens a branch
in the still-small town
of Las Vegas.
Tom Young brings a completely
new aesthetic and scale
to sign writing,
and at its heart
is neon lighting.
[ buzzing ]
These are some of the biggest
signs in the world here.
These I-beams
were just massive,
because it was supporting
a 260-foot display.
Our plastic fabrication
is back in this area.
We actually just shipped out
a giant flamingo
that's going downtown.
The scale is much bigger here
than you'll get anywhere else
in the world.
Caesars at 165 feet,
Mandalay, Mirage, Bellagio:
we've had involvement
with every casino
that you can think of
in Las Vegas.
This is our glass room.
I'll take you in there
and show you.
By using different color
glass tubes
and even different gases,
Young creates a rainbow
of bright colors.
JOHNSON: So for someone like
your grandfather in 1920,
what is it about neon that seems
so immediately useful?
Well, at the time, light bulbs,
you could turn them on and off,
but they didn't really
have color
and you couldn't bend them.
You get a tube of glass,
and you can bend it
virtually in any shape,
in virtually any color.
I mean, there was just
nothing like that anywhere,
and so it just took off
like wildfire.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
It's a remarkable story
of how different ideas
and skills came together
to create something brand-new.
A new technology from France
collides with an immigrant sign
designer from England
in the middle of the American
Southwest.
Young realizes that neon
isn't just about light.
It could also be used
to make words.
It's one of those
chance encounters
that will ultimately transform
the look of an entire city.
Neon light becomes
the ultimate way to advertise.
Hotels and casinos use it
to lure people in.
The giant neon displays
are even seen as
a new form of art.
These lights inspire
a generation of architects
to abandon the sterile, serious
designs of Modernism
and embrace the playful,
symbolic excess
of the Las Vegas strip.
This is how change happens.
Scientists discover
a new kind of gas,
which creates an amazing
business opportunity,
which ultimately leads
to a new artistic movement,
and every step of that journey,
neon lit the way.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
People like Young
were now using light
to send out a bold,
bright message.
In the final chapter
in the story of light,
it would be used
not for illumination as such,
more as an industrial tool.
And this time as well,
inspiration didn't come
from scientists,
but from science fiction.
Just a minute!
Ladies and gentlemen, I think
something is happening.
[ ominous string music plays ]
From H.G. Wells in the 1800s
through to Flash Gordon
and Superman in the 1930s,
early sci-fi stories,
comic strips, and films
often used beams of light
to zap people.
[ laser buzzes ]
The innovation of what
came to be called the laser
didn't actually come about
in the real world
until the late 1950s
and early '60s.
Not for the first time,
the science-fiction writers
were well ahead
of the scientists.
When the laser finally
becomes reality,
its first mainstream use
isn't as a terrifying weapon,
but as something
a little less exciting:
[ beeps ]
scanning barcodes.
[ beeps ]
Barcodes were invented
back in the late '40s
by two grad students,
Bernard Silver
and Norman Woodland.
They'd overheard a shop owner
wanting a way to read product
information at the checkout.
Well, you'll want
one of this, sir.
Six pence a card.
Six pence, eh?
To read the barcodes originally
took a cumbersome device
inspired by a movie projector
and powered by a large
500-watt light bulb.
But with the invention
of the laser,
a different kind of light
was created.
It's very pure, made from
single colors of the spectrum,
and can be focused
to a narrow beam.
With a laser,
small, handheld scanners
were possible.
Okay, so it may not seem like
the sexiest of innovations,
but the ability to quickly
and efficiently scan barcodes
transformed retailing
all around the world.
Each transaction could be
recorded and tracked
into the supply chain,
which meant that you never
ran out of goods.
Big retail outlets were able
to maintain
vast inventories of goods,
which gave them
a critical advantage over
smaller mom-and-pop stores.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
With barcodes
and laser scanners,
retail outlets ballooned
into the huge stores
that now dominate shopping
malls across the world.
Lasers effectively changed
the face of shopping.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
Today, lasers have come
to enable
so much in our daily life.
Lasers transform the music
and movie industry
with the innovation of CDs
and DVDs,
and they make
an awesome stage show.
High-power lasers are behind
every journey we make.
They revolutionize construction
for transport,
with laser cutting, drilling,
and welding
used in building every car
and airplane.
And laser light transforms
global communications,
as nearly every telephone call,
email, and web search
is now carried as pulses
of light
through a system
of fiber optics.
Science fiction
might have given birth
to the idea of lasers,
but they're now an essential
tool in scientific research.
And if the old sci-fi fans
might have been disappointed
to see lasers used
for barcode scanning,
they'd be thrilled
to see
what scientists have planned
for them next.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
This is the Lawrence Livermore
National Ignition Facility
near San Francisco.
It's here that we can look
into the future story of light.
This is a high-security
facility.
I've been scanned
and swabbed and searched,
but I'm here because inside
this building,
scientists have created
the most powerful laser system
on the planet,
and the hope is that
they can use the light
to create not a death ray,
but instead a near limitless
supply of clean energy.
The goal here is
to use laser light
to power nuclear fusion,
the same process that drives
our sun and the stars.
The head man
is Mike Dunne.
The objective of this facility
is to try to reproduce,
in miniature, what's happening
at the center of the sun.
And how far along
in the process
towards that fusion goal
would you say you are?
We're still going through
the experimental journey.
And in fact, today there's
a major experiment under way
to see if we can get
to that next level.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
In the control room,
the team of scientists
and engineers are preparing
to fire the laser system.
When they flick the switch,
a single pulse of low-power
laser light
is sent off through
fiber optic cables.
But then, in this
cavernous room,
it gets split up into
192 separate laser beams,
and their power is amplified
4 million billion times,
reaching a total output
of 500,000 gigawatts.
The lasers then get routed down
to the basement,
to the fusion reaction chambe.
You know how you see something
that seems really futuristic,
and you're like, that looks like
something from Star Trek?
It's like, this actually was
from Star Trek.
DUNNE: This is the engine room
of the starship Enterprise.
It's incredible.
So this is the heart
of the whole facility,
where the laser beams
come down from above.
We focus each laser beam down
to a tiny point in space
about the width
of a human hair,
onto this fusion fuel.
That red dot inside
the fuel cell
is a tiny droplet
of frozen hydrogen.
When the laser beams strike i,
the hydrogen atoms
are converted into helium,
releasing lots of energy.
MAN OVER RADIO: Countdown
started, T-minus 270 seconds.
Back in the control room,
they're ready to fire.
[ alarms blaring in distance ]
So I can tell something very
important is going on in here,
because they've got
all these computers,
and not a single person
is checking Facebook.
[ laughs ]
MAN OVER RADIO: System shot
sequence ready, T-minus 30.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
[ man gives indistinct update ]
MAN OVER RADIO:
Copy.
System shot sequence
ready in T-minus
10, 9, 8, 7, 6,
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Shot.
- We're still alive.
- We are.
- So that's good.
- First good sign.
So what just happened?
For an instant in time,
about 100 trillionths
of a second, we created,
just over there, the hottest
place in the solar system.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
This facility is still
at the experimental stage,
but someday,
possibly very soon,
the world could be powered
by fusion energy
created by laser light.
The hope is that we can optimize
this laser system and the fuel
to get more energy coming
out of the fusion process
than the laser itself delivers.
And if you can harness that,
then you've got
an inherently clean,
inherently safe
form of energy
that will last for probably
a few million years.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
When you stand and look at
this extraordinary machine,
you really have to pause
for a second
and remind yourself
that just 200 years ago,
the state of the art
in artificial light
involved cutting up a whale
on the deck of a ship
in the middle of
the North Atlantic.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
But here we are today,
and we're creating miniature
suns on Earth.
This is the journey of light,
and it started as this attempt
to just read a book
before we went to bed...
[ crowd cheering ]
and then it became
a massive form of commerce,
and then it became
a form of advertising,
and then it became
a form of art,
and now we're in this room
trying to create
the next chapter
in the story of light.
What started as just
an attempt
to illuminate our lives
after dark
now may be the future of energy.
In the next episode,
I'm looking at how we got to
today's refrigerated world.
It took people like
the college dropout
who tried to ship
blocks of ice
cut from a frozen lake
in Boston to steamy Georgia...
Everywhere he goes,
the ice melts.
and a guy trying to feed
his family in the Arctic.
Imagine trying to live
the entire winter
on, like, moose jerky.
Discovering how
to make things cold
has changed our world
in many unexpected ways.
[ grinding noise ]
Oh, my God!
How We Got to Now
was made possi
the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
and by contributions
to your PBS station from...
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To learn more about
How We Got to Now,
visit us on the web at...
How We Got to Now
is available on DVD.
A companion book
is also available.