The Wizard of Menlo park The world owes a great deal of gratitude to Thomas Alva Edison — and that includes the hvacr industry.
Others before him had worked on electric lighting, and some streets, department stores, and other locations had arc lighting installed in the late nineteenth century. The intense brightness of arc lights made them suitable for lighting big, open spaces, but they did not lend themselves to small interior spaces. It was Edison who provided a safer, less expensive lighting system with the invention of the incandescent light bulb.