Although Georges Claude made his fortune by inventing the neon light, his other scientific advancements were just as important as his lucky contribution to the advertising business. Claude began his career in the municipal electricity works of Paris, where he experienced a near-fatal accident with a high-tension wire that led him to develop better safety precautions. In 1897, he invented a novel way to transport and store the dangerously flammable gas acetylene. He dissolved the gas in a liquid, acetone, which made it much easier and safer to handle. This idea greatly facilitated the industrial use of acetylene as an organic chemical. Then in 1902, Claude developed a process to make liquid air in commercial quantities, around the same time that German chemist Karl Paul Gottfried von Linde invented a similar process. Claude also improved methods of generating power from the energy released when liquid oxygen is re-gasified. When the...