A little slice of history

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Re: A little slice of history

Two things that I found interesting...

They said that the lights are "kept in a condescent". That makes me want to look up what a "candescent" is. Also, they said that Edison stock was 5,000 bucks a share. WOW!
 
Re: A little slice of history

I also liked this:

Mr. Edison is making a bed-room lamp. This will take three horseshoe-shaped pieces of charred paper within its globe, and there will be an apparatus by which the electric current can be sent through any one of them at will. One of them will furnish as much light as an ordinary lamp, but the other two will furnish less.

I had no idea that the old goat had invented the three-way lamp.

- Jim K
 
Re: A little slice of history

Originally posted by rattus:
You mean like flammable and inflammable?
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Actually, there is a slight difference: the former means the substance itself can combust, and the latter means the substance can be nade to burn from a fire.

An example of each would be gasoline and wood.
 
Re: A little slice of history

Larry, my dictionary says they mean the same thing, but flammable is the preferred word because the prefix "in" could be construed to mean "not" flammable.

For years, gasoline tankers carried "INFLAMMABLE" signs. Then they dropped the "IN" for the reason noted.
 
Re: A little slice of history

Larry, I didn't know it until I looked it up. I suspect "inflammable" comes from "inflame" which does not mean to start a fire.
 
Re: A little slice of history

Originally posted by georgestolz:
Originally posted by bphgravity:
You can read everything and anything about Edison here (5 million pages):
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Dad gum it. You're upstaging me again. :D
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George, Bryan has probably already read 4 million of those pages. :cool:
 
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