ABSTRACT
After fruitless experimenting with platinum and other metal filaments on 22 October 1879, Thomas Alva Edison finally discovered the carbon material that would enable commercially successful production of electric light, and thus, seal his fame as one of the most successful inventors in the history of modern technology. This groundbreaking discovery was made in Edison’s industrial research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey – arguably the first ‘innovative environment’ of its kind (Pretzer 2002). In Menlo Park chemists and engineers carried out joint research and development work under the direction of Edison who at the end of his career held more than a thousand US patents in his name.
