Lights Out

After a reign of more than 130 years, the incandescent lightbulb has earned a spot in the pantheon of the most successful technologies humankind has ever produced. It casts its glow in homes, businesses, and societies that would be almost unrecognizable to those who first delighted in its rays, like tiny suns in graceful glass. Along with the landline telephone and the internal combustion engine, it underpinned and helped usher in our modern world. And now, it's going.