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• On October 21, 1879, Thomas Edison invented the first light bulb of practical value when he discovered that carbonized cotton filaments would burn for 40 hours in a vacuum inside a glass bulb. Come along with Tidbits as we turn on the lights! LIGHT BULB FACTS • Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. He merely improved it. The search for electric lighting had begun some fifty years before Edison ever sat down to work on the problem, but all methods either burned out too fast or emitted poisonous gasses.

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• In 1878, Edison promised that in six weeks he would solve the problem of the incandescent light. Fourteen weeks and 1,600 experiments later, he discovered that cotton thread that had been burned to ash was the best filament to use in the vacuum of a light bulb. • Edison subsequently invented the power plant and an electrical distribution system that made electricity widely available. The power company he started is General Electric. • Filaments in modern incandescent light bulbs are made from a coiled thread of tungsten that’s 21 inches long (53 cm) and half as thick as a human hair.

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Tidbits® of Bismarck LIGHT BULBS (continued): • Today’s light bulbs use a filament of tungsten because it’s a strong metal that can withstand high temperatures without melting. It is heated to around 4,500 degrees F. (2,482 C). This high temperature makes the wire glow with heat. Tungsten comes from the Swedish language, with “tung” meaning heavy and “sten” meaning stone. • Three-way light bulbs have two different filaments: one 50-watt filament and one 100-watt filament. They can be turned on individually or together to produce 150 watts. • If there were any air inside the bulb, the filament would burn up. Most bulbs contain nitrogen and argon, which lengthen the life of the filament and prevent electricity from jumping around inside the bulb. • Different kinds of modern day bulbs such as black light and ozone lamps are used for such things as detecting ringworm, revealing art forgeries, finding minerals and water underground, killing odors, and inducing chickens to lay more eggs. STREETLIGHT FACTS • Vapor lamps use a gas rather than a wire to produce light. Instead of heating up a wire, the gas is energized, giving off light. Mercury vapor gives off a blue light, and sodium vapor gives off a yellow light. Vapor lamps produce more light than incandescent bulbs and last up to 100 times longer. • Fluorescent lights are a type of vapor lamp that use a combination of mercury and argon vapor. When electrical current passes through the vapor, it gives off ultraviolet light. The inside of the bulb is coated with phosphor, which lights up when struck by the ultraviolet light. Fluorescent lights are popular because they use 20% of the energy of incandescent bulbs, and produce 20% of the heat. • Vapor lamps have some disadvantages. Sodium vapor lamps when used indoors can cause a variety of ills ranging from eye strain to nausea due to the absence of blue light. And fluorescent light has been implicated in some studies in which mice developed cancer more frequently when living under fluorescent light than those living under incandescent light. • In a compact fluorescent bulb, electricity passes through a gas-filled tube and produces ultraviolet light which is absorbed by a phosphor coating on the inside of the tube which produces the visible light. Phosphor emits light in a narrow wavelength. If a CFL used only one type of phosphor, it would give off a single color. The solution is to use a variety of slightly different phosphors to produce a wide spectrum of light. This can be customized for different purposes, giving us the choice of “daylight”, “soft white”, “warm white” and other colors. See the next page for more!

1. GAMES: How many squares are on a chess board? 2. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What is the common name for sodium bicarbonate? 3. MEDICAL: What does the acronym stand for in the term “CAT scan”? 4. MUSIC: What nationality was Chopin? 5. GEOGRAPHY: The Dolomites mountain chain is located in what country? 6. HISTORY: Which U.S. state was the last to secede in the Civil War and the first to be readmitted to the union? 7. PHOBIAS: What fear is represented by the condition called astrophobia? 8. LANGUAGE: What are “bangers” in British slang? 9. ANIMAL KINGDOM: What is a group of rhinoceroses called? 10. TELEVISION: What were the names of the two main characters in the “Gilmore Girls”? (c) 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.

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STREETLIGHTS (continued): • A 100-watt incandescent light bulb converts only 2.6% of its energy into visible light. The rest is converted to heat, which is why you’ll burn yourself if you touch a light bulb that is turned on. Compact fluorescent bulbs are more efficient: they convert 7.7% of their energy into light, and the rest into heat. That may not seem like a lot, but it’s almost three times as energy efficient as the incandescent. • The most efficient commercial light bulbs are low pressure sodium lamps which convert 27% of their energy to light, but because they produce a harsh yellow color, they are not commonly used inside the home.

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1. Who was the first player to appear in a World Series for three different teams? 2. Name the player to lead the National League in stolen bases the most seasons. 3. In 2013, Washington State quarterback Connor Halliday set an NCAA FBS record for most pass attempts in a game. How many was it? 4. Carmelo Anthony set a New York Knicks record in 2014 for most points in a game (62). Who had held the team mark? 5. Who holds the Michigan State Spartans record for most career shutouts by a hockey goalie? 6. Name the last woman driver before Susie Wolff in 2014 to take part in a Formula One race weekend. 7. When was the last time before 2014 that neither of tennis’ Williams sisters played a singles match during the second week of Wimbledon? (c) 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.

• LEDs use 80% less energy than incandescents and last far longer because they have no filaments. An LED bulb in a newborn’s room would probably not have to be replaced until that child goes off to college. They generate no heat and contain no hazardous materials. UP IN LIGHTS • • In 1911 the first neon sign was patented. Neon is a colorless, odorless gas found in our atmosphere at a ratio of 1 part neon to 55,000 parts air. When concentrated in a glass tube, it conducts electricity and produces a red glow. The color can be changed by altering pressure or adding other gasses. • If you would like to make your own neon tubes, here’s the recipe: Simply liquefy a large quantity of air, and allow it to boil. Collect the first gasses that escape when it reaches boiling point. That will be a mixture of helium, neon, and nitrogen. Remove the nitrogen through chemical absorption, then chill the remaining mixture to -310 f. (-190 C) and pass it over charcoal, which will absorb the helium. Now heat the charcoal to recover the neon. LAVA LAMPS • What is a lava lamp made of? The moving blob is specially compounded wax, floating in a tube of mineral oil. When heated by the 40-watt light bulb below, it expands and becomes less dense than the liquid it’s suspended in and starts to rise. At the top of the globe, the wax cools and begins to sink again. HANDY TIP • If you don’t want bugs buzzing around your porch lights, use yellow light bulbs. Yellow is invisible to many insects so they won’t be attracted to the light. A WORLD RECORD • The world’s oldest functioning light bulb is located at the fire department in Livermore, CA. It was installed in 1901. It’s been lit ever since, and has been turned off only a handful of times, mostly accidentally, or when it was transferred to different locations. It’s listed in “Guinness Book of World Records” and “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”

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FAMOUS CANADIANS:

WOODWARD & EVANS • Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the light bulb. However, two Canadians successfully produced and patented an electric filament lamp five years before Edison turned his mind to electric lighting. • Medical student Henry Woodward lived next to Matthew Evans, who was a doorman at a hotel near where they lived in Toronto. They spent their spare time together and enjoyed performing amateur science experiments. • One evening in 1873, they hooked up an induction coil to a primitive battery. There was a spark at the contact post which intrigued them. It was bright enough to illuminate their entire work bench. They couldn’t help but think that if they could confine that spark in a glass globe, they’d have a marvelous invention on their hands.

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• Woodward and Evans reasoned that passing current through a high resistance filament would increase the temperature of the filament material and cause it to glow. They experimented with various types of filaments and discovered that a carbon rod worked best. They enclosed the carbon rod filament inside a glass tube which had originally been a boiler level indicator, then connected electrodes to both ends. Before testing their primitive light tube, Woodward and Evans replaced the air inside the tube with nitrogen to prevent the carbon rod from catching fire. • Woodward and Evans took their contraption to Morrison’s Brass Foundry in Toronto for testing. Evans recalled, “There were four or five of us sitting around a large table. Woodward closed the switch and gradually we saw the carbon become first red and gradually lighter and lighter in color until it beamed forth in beautiful light.”

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• It was President John F. Kennedy who defined happiness as “the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.” • Any novelty seeker planning a trip to Japan ought to include a trip to the town of Susami, home to the world’s deepest underwater postbox. A scuba diver who would like to send a unique message should head to the local dive shop and buy a special waterresistant postcard, then use an oil-based marker to write the message. On a dive off the town’s coast, the diver can head down 30 feet to deposit the mail in a red postbox, which is checked every few days by a diveshop employee. All the postcards are then taken to the local post office and sent on to the recipients. • Considering the ever-increasing cost of postage, you might be surprised to learn that the U.S. Postal Service was free until 1863. • Milton Hershey, creator of the iconic Hershey Bar and founder of the Pennsylvania company town that bears his name, grew up in a Mennonite family, working on the family farm. He had no formal schooling past the fourth grade. He served as an apprentice to a candy maker, then started his own confectionery. It failed. His second attempt also was a failure. His third attempt in the candy business was such a success that he sold the company for a large profit in 1900. He immediately used the proceeds from that sale to come up with his own formula for milk chocolate and create the Hershey Company. • Those who study such things say that 20 percent of American men have spent at least one night in jail. ***

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WOODWARD & EVANS (continued):

• On Oct. 26, 1776, a month after being named a diplomatic agent, Benjamin Franklin sets sail from Philadelphia for France, where he was to negotiate and secure a formal alliance and treaty. While Franklin’s personal achievements were celebrated and feted in Paris, his treaty success was slow. The treaty wasn’t signed until 1778. • On Oct. 25, 1881, Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, is born in Spain. Picasso’s body of work comprises more than 50,000 paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures and ceramics produced over 80 years until his death in 1973 at age 91. • On Oct. 22, 1934, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd is shot and killed by FBI agents in a cornfield in East Liverpool, Ohio. Floyd, who had been a hotly pursued fugitive for four years, used his last breath to proclaim his innocence. • On Oct. 20, 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee of the U.S. Congress opens its investigation into communist infiltration of the American movie industry. Many Hollywood actors saw their careers destroyed over false allegations or when they protested having their political loyalties questioned. • On Oct. 24, 1958, mystery writer Raymond Chandler starts working on his last novel, “The Poodle Springs Story,” but he would die before completing it. Chandler published only seven novels, among them his first novel, “The Big Sleep,” in 1939 and “The Long Goodbye” in 1953. • On Oct. 21, 1967, some 100,000 anti-war demonstrators march on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. military. Violence erupted when the protesters clashed with soldiers and U.S. marshals protecting the building. By the time order was restored, 683 people had been arrested. • On Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drives a truck filled with 2,000 pounds of explosives into a U.S. Marine Corps barracks at the Beirut International Airport. The explosion killed 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. Four months after the bombing, American forces left Lebanon without retaliating. (c) 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.

• Encouraged by the results, they invested in a dynamo to power the lights. Woodward and Evans were subsequently granted patents in Canada and the U.S. for their incandescent light tube. Next, they went out to find investors so they could set up a company to supply electric lights to the public. And that’s when they ran into trouble. • They found some initial backers, but didn’t bring in enough money to get the company off the ground. When they asked for additional funding from their investors, most of the original stockholders declined. When Evans and Woodward were publicly criticized for creating a “useless invention,” funding evaporated and frustration set in. • By 1879, Thomas Edison was experimenting with light bulbs and he discovered the patents that already existed. He contacted Woodward and Evans and asked them if they would sell the American patent to him. They sold out for the sum of $5,000, which would be worth about $125,000 today. Six years later, Edison bought the Canadian patent as well. • Edison was far better situated to commercialize and distribute the new invention. Demand for electric lighting grew rapidly. • Edison was also forced into business with chemist Joseph Swan, who had patented the same idea in Britain. Swan would not sell his patent, so Edison and Swan went into business together. • Great inventions are often built on innovations by many people, inventors improving and expanding on advancements of others until a workable article is achieved. Edison’s incandescent light bulb is an example of that process, and it all began with a couple of Canadians.

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1. Name the Ray Davies song released by Dave Berry in 1965. 2. They started as the Four Lovers, Frankie Tyler, and the Topics. What name did they eventually settle on? 3. Which group released “Macho Man”? 4. Which group released “Let Your Love Go” in 1971? 5. Name the song that contains this lyric: “Didn’t hear your wicked words every day, And you used to be so sweet, I heard you say that my love was an addiction, When we cling our love is strong, When you go you’re gone forever, You string along, you string along.” (c) 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.

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Director Joon-ho Bong of Korea is known for “The Host,” a seemingly typical monster flick that turned out to be astoundingly engaging, emotional and fun. This same inventiveness is evident in this newest offering, which also boasts a bigger budget and a globe-spanning A-list cast.

EDITOR’S NOTE: DVDs reviewed in this column will be available in stores the week of Oct. 20, 2014. Earth to Echo (PG) -- This found-footage feature feels like a return to the classic blockbuster kidventure flick, but updated with just enough new-millennium style. Tuck, Munch and Alex (Astro, Reese C. Hartwig and Teo Halm) are the three closest pre-teen pals in their little Nevada neighborhood. The boys desperately want to save the town from a freeway expansion that will demolish it and separate the trio. Adventure calls when the boys receive strange messages on their cellphones, all leading to Echo, a stranded little alien who needs help. Snowpiercer (R) -- This bold-action sciencefiction flick has been burning down the film festivals, despite its silly name. When mankind tries to control the climate with a chemical solution, we accidentally freeze the whole world. The last living people have to stay aboard a constantly moving super-train called Snowpiercer -- and there’s trouble brewing with the rabble who are forced to live in the back of the train and “know their place.” Chris Evans plays the hardened hero who leads a scheme to overthrow the train’s ruling class. This movie has a wide array of sci-fi and popculture inspiration, all used to great effect.

The Purge: Anarchy (R) -- Slightly better than last year’s purge, this one leaves the suburban fortress and goes into the streets. In the nearish future, the government gives everybody one night a year where all crime is legal. The action follows Sergeant (Frank Grillo), a grizzled loner who ends up saving a few helpless folks with his armored car. Sergeant and the assorted survivors cruise the city streets, fighting and evading different gangs of psychopaths. The movie is gory, but doesn’t cut as deep as it thinks it does. Canopy (PG-13) -- An Australian fighter pilot wakes up suspended in a jungle canopy, shot down by invading Japanese forces. Now he’s stranded, unarmed, starving and uncertain of which way to go. In the jungle, he meets another stranded soldier -- a member of the local resistance. They band together to brave the harsh wilderness and outfox the determined Japanese troops hunting them. This movie uses suspense, paranoia and masterful audio to keep the tension strong in this fight for survival. TV RELEASES “Pee-wee’s Playhouse: Seasons 1 & 2” “Mad Men: the Final Season-Part 1” “Silent Witness: Season 1” “Annie Oakley: The Complete TV Series” (c) 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.

THOMAS EDISON • Thomas Edison had three months of schooling, which ended when he heard the teacher telling the inspector that he was addled. When he told his mom, it made her so mad that she told the teacher off and took him out of school. In spite of the lack of education, Edison patented over 1,000 inventions in his lifetime, averaging one new patent every two weeks during his adult life. In one four-year period, he averaged one patent every 5 days. • Edison arrived penniless in New York City at the age of 22. He persuaded a friend to let him sleep in the office of the Gold Indicator Co., a stock-ticker firm. When the stock ticker broke down, Edison repaired it after everyone else failed. He improved the design, and when the president of the company asked him how much he wanted for the patents, he couldn’t decide whether to ask for $5,000 or $3,000, so he said, “How much are you offering?” and the president said, “How would $40,000 strike you?” whereupon Edison replied, “Yes, I think that will be fair.” He used the money to open his workshop and begin his inventing career. • The first invention he ever tried to sell was an electric vote-recording machine. He tried to sell it to Congress, but was refused. When a congressional vote was taken orally, it took 45 minutes, which gave congressmen plenty of time to trade votes. A faster method of voting would cut down on the vote trading. • In 1878 Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for the phonograph. He used a small metal cylinder covered with tin foil. He originally envisioned it as a business machine for dictation. This infuriated stenographers because they feared being put out of work. At first there was no way of duplicating the cylinders and performers had to repeat their renditions over and over in front of as many phonograph machines as could fit in the room.

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THOMAS EDISON (continued):

• Thomas Edison was almost totally deaf when he invented the phonograph. • He developed a device to electrocute cockroaches while he was living in Memphis, TN in 1866. • When Edison was only 31, his reputation was already so great that when he announced he was attempting to invent an electric light bulb, the value of stock in gas companies plummeted. • At the San Francisco World Fair in 1915, an official “Edison Day” was declared. The first transcontinental telephone line had been strung between New Jersey and California just in time for the fair. In front of a crowd, Edison phoned his home in New Jersey— one of the first ever long-distance calls. • He felt that memory was composed of electron particles that spread through space, never dying or changing, but leaving the head of a dying human being in search of another host. Psychics could pick up and hear these messages, and Edison was sure a machine could do the same. He devoted several years of his life to building such a contraption. For years, he also worked on a valve-operated receiving set whose purpose was to deliver messages from the spirit world. He died before either invention was ever completed.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Sports Quiz Answers Andy Pafko, with the Chicago Cubs (1945), Brooklyn Dodgers (‘52) and Milwaukee Braves (‘57, ‘58). Max Carey led the N.L. in steals in 10 different seasons. He had 89 pass attempts against Oregon. Bernard King tallied 60 points in a game in 1984. Ryan Miller recorded 26 shutouts between 1999 and 2002. Giovanna Amati, in 1992. It was 2006.

Trivia Test Answers

• Henry Ford had the greatest affection for Thomas Edison. They worked together and became good friends. Ford believed in reincarnation, and perhaps believed that one’s soul exited the body with the last breath exhaled on earth. He asked Edison’s son to hold a test tube next to Edison’s mouth when he breathed his last in 1931. He did Flash Back Trivia so, and the test tube was discovered in Ford’s Answers personal things after his death in 1950. 1. “The Strange Effect.” Davies, a member of The test tube is now on display at the Ford the Kinks, never released a studio recording museum. of the song, but it can be found on live recordings. 2. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, naming themselves after a bowling alley. They went through 18 incarnations before settling on that. 3. The Village People, in 1978. It was their second single. 4. Bread. 5. “Karma Chameleon,” by Boy George and Culture Club, in 1983. In an interview, Boy George explained the song, “If you don’t act like you feel, then you get Karma-justice, that’s nature’s way of paying you back.” (c) 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.

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