As I Turned Out the Lights …

I take my modern life for granted. I am surrounded by conveniences that have become necessities. They aren’t really necessary. Food, clothing, shelter, air, water … those are necessary. The rest is extra.

Electricity makes my modern life possible. Even my gas heat has an electrically run fan. We know how much we depend on electricity when a storm comes through and knocks it out. How did the world that was once dark at night become the place of light?

Electrical generators are based on Michael Faraday’s principle of “electromagnetic induction” that he discovered in 1831.

By 1837 the first industrial electric motor was in use.
By 1879 the first commercial power station was built in San Francisco.
By 1883 the transformer was invented.

And in 1882 Thomas Alva Edison used his patented electric distribution system to get power to 59 customers in Manhattan so that they could light the darkness with his candescent light.

Now for the history of humanity.

4,000,000,000,000 years ago the first life appeared
600,000,000,000 years ago multicellular life appeared
300,000,000,000 years ago amphibians were morphed into reptiles
220,000,000,000 years ago the first mammals appeared
15,000,000,000 years ago our human ancestors separated from the gibbon
2,000,000,000 years ago Homo habilis appeared
1,800,000,000 years ago Homo erectus appeared
100,000 years ago the first anatomically modern Homo sapiens appeared
10,000 years ago humans had covered the planet – except for Antarctica

We have had electricity to power our world for a mere 124 years. That is 0.124% of the time since modern humans first appeared. That is only 0.0000000031% of the time since life first appeared on Earth.

When my power goes out, when I lose my electricity, I am stymied. I cannot work much of anything in my house. There is no cooking because I have an electric stove. There is no television or computer. There are no video games. I can tell what time it is because I have battery operated clocks, but that’s cheating because it is stored electricity. I do have a pendulum clock, too, but it isn’t always wound up and working.

How different life would be if I was born a mere 150 years earlier. Candles are pretty now, but in the past they sputtered and guttered. They gave off smoke and grime. And not all that much light. Reading by candlelight isn’t all that thrilling. Kerosene lamps were available and they smelled even worse.

My life would have been quantifiably poorer without this marvelous invention that I simply take for granted. I believe it is necessary to life and yet … it is only necessary to modern life. For most of the time life has progressed on this planet, there was no electricity. Isn’t that scary?

I wonder how any of us from this society, this culture, this advanced technology could function in the societies of even 150 years ago. I bet we wouldn’t fare so well.

All these thoughts because I wondered at turning off a light!