By Deb Oestreicher on December 27, 2005. Format: Paperback. I heard the title The Man with the Golden Arm long before I ever read the book or saw the movie. It's a beautiful, evocative title, but it also makes you think of something grotesque: a man with a shiny prosthetic.
Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879, patenting it the following year. Before getting the right design for a long-burning, pleasant light for indoor use, he experimented with more than 1,600 different bulbs.
Like most stories, however, there is a lot more behind the creation of this important and ubiquitous object than just Mr. Edison.. The story of the lightbulb really starts almost seventy years earlier. In 1806 Humphrey Davy, an Englishman, demonstrated a powerful electric lamp to the Royal Society.