The Birth of High-Tech Ceramics Lamps

The title of this section is taken from the title of another essay by Kingery, one of the most eloquent and expert proponents of the central role of ceramics in MSE (for a sketch of his educational innovations, see Section 1.1.1). The essay is in a book series entitled Ceramics and Civilization (Kingery 1990). 

The electrical age was built on the discovery in the early 1830s, independently by Joseph Henry (1797-1878) in America and Michael Faraday (1791-1867) in England, of electromagnetic induction, which led directly to the invention of the dynamo to generate electricity from steam-powered rotation. It came to fruition on New Year s Eve, 1879, when Thomas Edison (1847-1931) in rural New Jersey, after systematic and exhaustive experiments, made the first successful incandescent lamp, employing a carbonised filament made from some thread taken from Mrs. Edison s sewing cabinet. The lamp burned undimmed for 40 h, watched anxiously by Edison and some of his numerous collaborators. This lamp was ideal for 

The 32-year interval between 1879 and 1911 saw a classic instance of challenge and response, in the battle between electric and gas lighting, and between two rival 

The history of these three lamp types offers as good an example as I know of the mechanism of challenge and response in industrial design. Several more major electric lamp types have been introduced during the past century - one of them will be outlined in the next section - but competition did not eliminate any of them. 

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