Although Thomas Edison is often credited with inventing the light bulb, the famous American inventor was not the only one who contributed to the development of this revolutionary technology. Many other notable figures are also remembered for their work with electric batteries, light bulbs, and the creation of the first incandescent light bulbs.
The story of the light bulb begins long before Edison patented the light bulb.
The story of the light bulb begins long before Edison patented the successful invention of the light bulb and first commercialized it in 1879. In 1800, Italian inventor Alessandro Volta developed The first practical method to produce electricity was the electric current. Made from zinc and copper interlaced discs, interspersed with layers of glossy paper soaked in salt water, the pile conducts electricity when copper wires are connected at both ends. While seen as the forerunner of today’s modern batteries, the Volta’s bright copper wire is also considered one of the earliest manifestations of lightning.
Not long after Volta discovered a constant source of electricity for the Royal Society in London, British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy produced the world’s first electric light by connecting poles voltaic power with charcoal electrodes. Davy’s 1802 invention became known as an electric arc lamp, named for the arc of light emitted between its two carbon rods.
While Davy’s arc lamp is certainly an improvement on the Volta’s stand-alone stuff, it’s still not a practical light source. This rudimentary lamp burns out quickly and is too bright for use in a home or workspace. But the principles behind Davy’s arc light were used throughout the 1800s in the development of many electric and other light bulbs.
The bulb uses a platinum coiled nanowire.
In 1840, English scientist Warren de la Rue developed a light bulb designed to efficiently use platinum coiled nanowires instead of copper, but the high cost of platinum made such a bulb impossible to use. a commercial success. And in 1848, William Staite improved the life of conventional arc lamps by developing a clock mechanism that adjusted the movement of the carbon rods to resist rapid corrosion. However, the cost of the batteries used to power Staite’s lights reduced the budget for the inventor’s commercial projects.
In 1850, English chemist Joseph Swan solved the cost-effectiveness problem of previous inventors, and by 1860 he had developed a light bulb that used carbonized filaments instead of carbonized filaments. platinum fibers. According to the Smithsonian Institution, Swan received a patent in England in 1878, and in February 1879 he demonstrated a working lamp during a lecture in Newcastle, England. Like previous versions of the bulb, Swan’s filaments are housed in a vacuum tube to minimize their exposure to oxygen, extending their lifespan. Unfortunately for Swan, the vacuum pumps of his day were not as efficient as they are now, and although his prototype worked well, practical use was not satisfactory.
Edison realized that the problem with Swan’s design was the filament . A thin filament with high resistance will make the bulb more efficient because it will only need a little electricity to make it light. He demonstrated his light bulb in December 1879. Swan incorporated the improvement into his light bulb and founded an electric lighting company in England. Edison sued for patent infringement, but Swan’s patent was a strong claim, at least in the United Kingdom, and the two inventors eventually joined together, forming Edison-Swan United , becoming one of the largest light bulb manufacturers in the world.
Thomas Edison and his invention of the light bulb.
Swan was not Edison’s only rival. In 1874, Canadian inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans , published their patent for an electric lamp with different carbon rods held between electrodes in a glass bottle filled with nitrogen. The two tried unsuccessfully to commercialize their lamps, eventually selling the patent to Edison in 1879.
The success of the Edison light bulb was followed by the founding of the Edison Electric Illuminating company in New York in 1880. The company was founded with financial contributions from J.P. Morgan and other wealthy investors in the business. at that time. The company built the first generating stations that could power the electrical system and patented new light bulbs. The first power station opened in September 1882 on Pearl Street in Manhattan.
According to the US Department of Energy, other inventors, such as William Sawyer and Albon Man, merged their companies with Edison and became the Electric Corporation.
According to Edison, he succeeded and surpassed his competitors in developing an inexpensive and practical light bulb. Edison and his research team in Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, tested more than 3,000 designs for light bulbs between 1878 and 1880. In November 1879, Edison filed a patent for a light bulb. Electric lamp with carbon fiber . The patent listed several materials that could be used for the filament, including cotton, linen, and wood. Edison spent the next year finding the perfect filament for his new light bulb, testing more than 6,000 plants to determine which materials would burn the longest.
A few months after the patent was issued in 1879, Edison and his team discovered that a filament made of carbon could burn for more than 1,200 hours. Bamboo was used as the filament in Edison’s light bulbs until it began to be replaced by a more durable material in the 1880s and early 1900s.
In 1882, Lewis Howard Latimer, one of Edison’s researchers, was patented with a more efficient way to produce filament. And in 1903, Willis R. Whitney invented a treatment for these filaments that allowed them to burn brightly without blackening the interior of the glass bulb.
Tungsten has the highest melting point of any chemical element.
William David Coolidge, an American physicist with General Electric, improved the company’s method of producing tungsten filaments in 1910. Tungsten has the highest melting point of any chemical element, known to Edison came to be an excellent material for the filament of a light bulb, but the machinery needed to manufacture the tungsten filament had to be of very good quality, and was not available at the end of the 19th century. Tungsten remained the main material used used in current hot incandescent filaments.
LED lights are seen as the future of lighting due to their lower energy requirements to operate, a lower monthly cost, and longer lifespan than traditional incandescent bulbs.
Nick Holonyak, an American scientist at General Electric, accidentally invented red LED light while trying to make a laser in the early 1960s. Like other inventors, the principle of certain substances sold out. LED luminescence for electrical use has been known since the early 1900s, but Holonyak was the first to patent it for use as a fixture.
Light-emitting diodes are considered the future of lighting due to their lower energy requirements to operate.
As directed by the DOE, within a few years, yellow and green LEDs were added and used in a variety of applications including indicator lights, computer monitors, and traffic lights. Green LEDs were created in the early 1990s by Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, a group of Japanese and American scientists, and they won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. make white LEDs by coating the diodes with phosphorus.
Today, the choice of lighting has expanded and people can choose from different types of bulbs, including compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) that work by heating a gas and emitting light and bulbs. led light.
Several lighting companies are pushing the limits of what light bulbs can do, including Phillips and Stack. Phillips is one of many companies that have created wireless bulbs that can be controlled via a smartphone app. Phillips Hue uses LED technology that can be quickly turned on or off or dimmed by an app on a smartphone screen and can also be programmed differently depending on the intended use. High-end fluorescent bulbs can even be set to a variety of colors (about sixteen million colors) and synchronized with music, movies, and video games.
Stack, started by engineers from Tesla and NASA, develops a smart light bulb that uses LED technology with various functions. It can automatically detect ambient light and adjust as needed, it turns off and on motion sensors when someone enters the room, can be used as a wake-up alarm and even adjusts color. throughout the day to match the natural human circadian cycle and patterns of natural light. The bulbs also have a built-in learning program that adapts to the inputs provided by the user over time. And all these functions can be programmed or monitored from any smartphone or tablet.
These bulbs are compatible with a variety of options to turn an entire home into a smart home including use with Amazon Alexa, GoogleHome, and Apple’s HomeKit.