[hudon]

"I have failed to invent a light bulb" Broken implies it was working to begin with, or can be compared to something that works, as the post you're replying to states.

[rchaud]

Nobody knows what a lightbulb is as it hasn't been invented. What you did was fail to reinvent the candle.

[ineedasername]

I know what lots of things are that have yet to be invented. Space elevators and their variations, for example.

[ouid]

No. Your attempt is now just shards of glass. It's borked. Before it was broken, it didn't work, but now its broken.

[hudon]

sure, but the thing that's broken was just that, a "thing". It wasn't a "lightbulb", because it was never able to produce light. It's a broken "bulb", at best, and that's a correct use of the word "broken", because it can be compared to other bulbs that aren't broken, in this case the glass bulb itself.

[JAlexoid]

Never having operated as desired and broken are different concepts.

My square wheel isn't broken, because it's square.

[ouid]

Seems like you just didnt read what I wrote.