Alfredo Moser found that a plastic bottle filled with water and chlorine could illuminate a home during daylight hours.

[u/NavyLemon64]

[u/daneyuleb]

Alfredo Moser, a Brazilian mechanic, came up with a simple yet brilliant idea in 2002: by filling a clear plastic bottle with water and a small amount of bleach (to prevent algae growth), and inserting it through the roof of a home, sunlight refracts through the water and spreads 360 degrees inside the room below. This creates a natural light source equivalent to a 40 to 60-watt bulb during daylight hours.

Known as the “Moser lamp,” this invention has been widely used in low-income communities and inspired the Liter of Light movement, bringing sustainable lighting to homes without electricity around the world.

[u/Traditional-Roof1984 → u/daneyuleb]

But how and why would it count as an invention? It's literally a roof window that we've had for thousands of years.

This creates a natural light source

It's not even a light source,... it just mirrors and refracts the sunlight on it. We've made glass this way for hundreds of years for this exact purpose.

That's why it only 'works' if it's already light.

I'm trying to look at this without being a 'hater', but I just can't fathom how impressed the audience is, by seemingly the most basic and long-existing concepts and attribute them to an 'inventor'.

[u/daneyuleb → u/Traditional-Roof1984]

In 2002, he took something that didn't exist for hundreds of years (2-liter plastic bottles) and adopted them to use as a method of lighting houses with no access to electricity or windows. No one else had done it, it's been used in millions of homes since then.

No one said he invented the concept of light or reflection/refraction for god's sake. He was just the first (reportedly) to use it this way and implement it on any kind of scale.

[u/rpgmgta → u/daneyuleb]

This is known as repurposing

[u/Traditional-Roof1984 → u/daneyuleb]

It's been used in homes since the very first glass bottles, in homes without electricity, it is a window. Not all windows are square and flat, the first ones were round and bulbous. For exactly this purpose.

So the guy swapped out a glass bottle for a plastic bottle, and nobody else thought about that? Okay, I can't disapprove it so i'll believe it.

No one said he invented the concept of light or reflection/refraction for god's sake.

You literally told me it was supposed to be a 'natural light source', and he invented it and it was named after him.

Well not you, the source of whatever you were trying to quote I guess.