Are you up for fun fact?

What filament material was used for Edison’s light bulb?…Drum roll…

Carbonized bamboo. If you’re like me, you probably were way off the mark, but I welcome the good company.

In the race to develop the first practical lightbulb for home use (electric street lights were already in use), inventors were using all sorts of materials to find the ideal luminescing substance. According to records, Edison’s research factory tested over 6,000 different materials before it discovered a material with the superiority of long life – when the Japanese bamboo was cut to the proper dimensions and carbonized, it incandesced for more than 1,200 hours when electrified. Nowadays, tungsten wire is used, but the average running time is about the same – 1,000 to 2,000 hours.

PS. This was a fun thinking exercise. Why not take 1 minute and scribble down as many ideas as you can think of to design a new light for the 21st century.