John Otten is an industry expert who has spent most of his working career within the lighting industry, including in an international role in incandescent/halogen product management and development worldwide

Death of a Light Bulb offers a comprehensive account of the 19th Century race to invent the incandescent light bulb Joseph Swan from England just beat the famous Thomas Edison from America in 1879, but it was Edison who actually patented his invention in most developed countries.

In this book, we consider the subsequent product, company and business developments covering:

• Need for electrification of households.

• Development of other light sources.
• Trading rings and pricing agreements on an international scale.

• Monopolies and industrial cartels, investigations by Monopolies Commissions

• Growth of some of the world’s great electrical companies e.g. GE of America, Philips, Siemens Osram, and Toshiba.
• Energy crisis, the environment and rapidly rising cost of electricity.
• European Commission Directive in March 2009 to phase out the standard incandescent lamp, signalling the death of this great invention.
• First substitute lamp, the energy saver compact fluorescent lamp, not welcomed by the consumer and causing the industry to rethink.

We are now witnessing the passing of this great icon of the twentieth century and the birth of a completely new light source, the LED (Light Emitting Diode). This is regarded by many in the industry as the holy grail of lamps with high efficiency, long life and potentially more consumer friendly.  Whether it will become a popular product and do what the energy saving compact fluorescent lamps never fully achieved remains to be seen. 

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