What Is the History of the Light Bulb?

 

Hint: Thomas Edison Did NOT Invent the First Light Bulb

 

The electric light, one of the most important everyday conveniences in our lives, was not “invented” in the traditional sense by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879, though he did build the first commercially feasible incandescent light. He was neither the first nor only person to attempt to design an incandescent light bulb. According to some historians, there were more than 20 inventors of incandescent lamps previous to Edison’s version. However, Edison is often credited with the invention because his version outperformed earlier versions due to a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others could achieve, and a high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable.

 

The First Electric Light Invention

 

Humphry Davy invented the first electric light in 1802. He experimented with electricity and created the first electric battery. He attached cables to his battery and a bit of carbon, which glowed and produced light. The Electric Arc lamp was his innovation. And, while it did emit light, it did so in short bursts and was far too bright for practical usage.

 

Other innovators built “light bulbs” throughout the next seven decades, but none were commercially viable. More significantly, in 1840, Warren de la Rue, a British physicist, contained a coiled platinum filament in a vacuum tube and conducted an electric current through it. The design was predicated on the idea that platinum’s high melting point would allow it to operate at high temperatures, and that the evacuated chamber would contain fewer gas molecules to react with the platinum, extending its lifespan. Although an efficient design, the cost of platinum rendered commercial manufacture impossible.

 

The First Light Bulb

 

In 1850, Joseph Wilson Swan, an English physicist, invented the “light bulb” by encapsulating carbonized paper filaments in the evacuated glass bulb. By 1860, he had a working prototype, but the lack of a suitable vacuum and an appropriate supply of electricity resulted in a bulb with a much too short life to be regarded as an effective light producer. However, improved vacuum pumps became available in the 1870s, and Swan resumed his experiments with light bulbs. Swan invented the longer-lasting light bulb in 1878 using a treated cotton thread, which also solved the problem of early bulb blackening.

 

On July 24, 1874, a Toronto medical electrician named Henry Woodward and a colleague named Mathew Evans submitted a Canadian patent. They made their lights out of carbon rods of various diameters and shapes held between electrodes in glass cylinders filled with nitrogen. Woodward and Evans sought but failed to market their lamp. In 1879, they sold their patent to Edison.

 

Thomas Edison and the Incandescent Light Bulb

 

Thomas Edison began a significant study into constructing a workable incandescent lamp in 1878, and on October 14, 1878, Edison filed his first patent application for “Improvement In Electric Lights.” However, he continued to explore several types of metal filament materials to improve on his original idea, and on November 4, 1879, he filed another U.S. patent for an electric light that used “a carbon filament or strip-coiled and connected… to platina contact wires.”

 

Although the patent described several methods for making the carbon filament, including “cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways,” it wasn’t until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last more than 1200 hours.

 

This discovery ushered in the era of commercially manufactured light bulbs, and in 1880, Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric Light Company began marketing its new product.

Following in the steps of Edison’s most useful creation, we at Rayvern Lighting, provide tons of lighting options. Whether you need commercial, industrial, or residential lighting we have plenty of options for you!