You're listening to Discovery and I'm Naomi Alderman. In today's science story,

Herter Marx Ayrton, the woman who tamed lightning by making safe, reliable electric lights.

You're standing in a street in a British town in the late Victorian era.

The old Queen's still on the throne. It's a time between the old world and the new.

It's a winter's night, cold and moonless.

Perhaps you're imagining the street is cobbled. Maybe there are fine new terraced

townhouses decorative plaster molding above the doors. There could be a flower cellar wrapped in a thin blanket, horses pulling plush velvet lined carriages.

But there could, just about, be a brand new motor car purring along.

So you should also imagine one more thing.

There's electric street light. High off the

ground the lamp is flickering and hissing. Underneath the streetlight stands a woman.

She has an intelligent determined face and curly hair pinned in a mound on top of her head.

She's staring up at the electric light. It's an arc lamp, a wisp of lightning crackling between two

electrodes. She's listening to the hiss, noticing that when the arc buzzes, the light dims.

She knows those lights throw off sparks, they can start fires.

She is imagining a future where electric light could be bright, even and safe.

She's thinking, how can I make that happen? This is the story of Herter Marks Ayrton and her somewhat unglamorous invention.

As one newspaper put it,

everyone is familiar with the buzzing that sometimes accompanies electric arcs

used for street illumination and with the diminution of illuminating power that follows it.

Everyone was familiar with the problem, but only one woman solved it.

Hurta Marx Eton had always had to be ingenious. Born into a Jewish family in Portsmouth in 1854,

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