DeepSummary
The transcript discusses the history of artificial light and how it evolved from rudimentary candles made from animal fat to modern electric lighting. It traces the economic impact of each advancement in lighting technology, from enabling longer work hours to fostering entirely new industries and economic growth.
A key aspect explored is the cost of light at different points in history, measured by how much a day's wages could purchase in terms of lighting duration. In ancient Babylon, a day's labor afforded only around 10 minutes of lighting, while the advent of kerosene lamps in the 1800s increased this to 5 hours. By the 1990s, a day's wages provided the equivalent of 20,000 hours of electric lighting.
The episode highlights how economic growth is driven by incremental improvements in productivity and efficiency across various domains. As lighting became cheaper and more readily available, it enabled further advancements in other areas, ultimately transforming societies from agrarian subsistence to modern economies with specialization and economic surplus.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Artificial lighting evolved from extremely labor-intensive methods like animal fat candles to highly efficient electric lighting over the course of centuries.
- The cost of lighting, measured by how much could be purchased with a day's wages, plummeted from a mere 10 minutes in ancient Babylon to the equivalent of 20,000 hours by the late 20th century.
- The increasing affordability and abundance of artificial light enabled economic productivity gains by allowing more work hours and the rise of entire new industries.
- Technological advancements in lighting remained relatively modest until a surge of innovation around the 19th century, catalyzed by the emergence of institutions dedicated to scientific research and experimentation.
- Economic growth is driven by compounding incremental improvements in productivity across domains like lighting, which in turn enables further improvements that transform societies and economies.
- While artificial lighting brought major economic benefits, there were also negative consequences like pollution from early coal-burning power plants.
- The future potential for radically improving lighting efficiency may be limited by underlying physical constraints and diminishing marginal returns on technological improvements.
- Illuminating the history of artificial light sheds light on the drivers and nature of broader economic growth throughout human civilization.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “When the first kerosene lamps came out, it was, as one historian said, it was the kind of oil people had dreamed about for centuries.“ by Jane Brox
- “If you work a day, you get about an hour of whale oil kerosene, you get about 5 hours.“ by Bill Nordhaus
- “Why weren't they doing those experiments a century earlier? Well, Yale didn't have scientists a century earlier. They were teaching greek and they were teaching logic.“ by Unknown
- “From babylonian times to around 1800, there were, even though there were improvements, as best we can tell, they were very modest. And then around 1800, in the lighting, you can see it so clearly in lighting, just an enormous change in the pace of improvement.“ by Bill Nordhaus
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Episode Information
Planet Money
NPR
6/5/24
The history of light explains why the world today is the way it is. It explains why we aren't all subsistence farmers, and why we can afford to have artists and massage therapists and plumbers. (And, yes, people who make podcasts about the history of light.) The history of light is the history of economic growth--of things getting faster, cheaper, and more efficient.
On today's show: How we got from dim little candles made out of cow fat, to as much light as we want at the flick of a switch.
Today's show was hosted by Jacob Goldstein and David Kestenbaum. It was originally produced by Caitlin Kenney and Damiano Marchetti. Today's rerun was produced by James Sneed, and edited by Jenny Lawton. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
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