It would be hard to refute that one of the most important developments of the 20th Century was the development of the electrical grid. It radically changed our society; allowing simultaneously larger windows of working hours and giving us far more leisure time than was possible without it; in fact, it has been suggested that electricity was the catalyst for the expansion of the middle class. It was also an instrumental catalyst for the second industrial revolution, which propelled the world into a new age of technological development and advancement. Nearly all of our industrial and mechanical progress since is only made possible because of electricity. There are a number of figures that are important to this discovery that predate the century, but two figures consistently come up in talks about the subject: Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. At the time, both of these inventors were generally considered to be celebrities and showmen. To the average person, they were impressive men of science that traveled the country showing off their magnificent inventions. Common knowledge tends to attribute Thomas Edison to be …show more content…
Edison had made a number of steps in the development of a commercially viable, long-lasting incandescent lightbulb. Though many people believe Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, it is surprisingly untrue. Many inventors prior to Edison devised, and even built similar concepts. The major difference was that almost all of these designs suffered from issues of efficiency, much like his D/C circuits. They had numerous flaws; namely extremely short lifespans, expensive to produce, or needs for an excessive amount of power. His lightbulb solved the majority of these issues and was the first successful product for major commercial and residential