The other day, I heard a repeat of an old Planet Money radio show episode on NPR about the history of light. Rather than just focus on the changes in technology over thousands of years, it really focused on the economic history of light. The story interviews a Yale economics professor who studied how much time a standardized lumen package of one day’s of labor would buy through thousands of years of history, from the ancient Babylonians animal fat candles to today’s LED lighting.
It is a very different way of looking at lighting than we typically do in our industry. The original episode ran in 2014, but it holds up well because it is primarily looking back at the history. It is a 20-minute radio episode and well worth the time. Some of the historical technologies discussed include tallow candles, whale oil, kerosene lamps, gas lamps, Edison electric lamps, and LED lamps. The full story can be downloaded and heard here.
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