America’s rush of scientific innovation at the end of the 19th century sparked the world as we know it today. Once Sprengel solved the removing of air from a glass bulb, Thomas Edison could take what was known at the time—when carbon gets hot, it lights up—and, freed from oxidation, make the arc light obsolete. His electric bulb was an instant catalyst for new ideas—including, as two men (Farnsworth & Zworykin) tried, activating a film of selenium across an electron beam. The result, television, was a harbinger of American ingenuity and intellectual progress, which today we honor by TiVo-ing Jersey Shore.