Back To The Essentials: Let's Have Another Look At Light Bulbs

By Author: Jo Alelsto
Total Articles: 405
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We are living in the electronic age and that cannot be denied. Most of our daily activities at home and at work necessitates the use of some form of electricity. From our mobile phones' LCDs to our washing machines and computer monitors we use to update our blogs and social pages with. Given all the amenities modern technology has given mankind in the 21st century, it's easy for us to forget how it all started, the invention of the humble light bulb.

The invention of the light bulb didn't just end with lighting. It actually paved the way to the development of electric power stations, cables and wiring to supply electricity to individual homes as well as the potpourri of appliances that make life convenient and comfortable. Contrary to what most people think, Thomas Edison wasn't the only one responsible for the invention that granted the world illumination and productive hours long after the sun has set. He was responsible for doing a great deal of research that led to the invention of the electric light, but he was far from being the only player in the process that brought about the invention of the light bulb as ...
... we know it today.

Before the incandescent light bulb, houses were illuminated with the use of electric arc lamps whose operation needed huge amounts of electricity. An Englishman that worked for the Royal Institution was credited with the first sources of electric lighting. In 1802, Humphry Davy was able to build a powerful electric battery that eventually became the source of power for the first generation of electrical light.

In the same year he was able to produce a battery with considerable electrical power, Davy experimented with electric light by running an electric current through a strip of platinum. Although the strip gave-off light for a short while, the amount of illumination was minimal and it wasn't commercially viable as platinum was expensive.

Davy came up with the battery-powered arc lamp a few years later in 1809 and this used two charcoal rods that were illuminated by running a powerful current between them. This became the most common form of electrical lighting for a while in England at that time.

Scotland was the setting for next step towards the invention of the modern-day light bulb when James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated a constantly lit, electrically powered source of illumination. The Dundee-based Lindsay claimed it would be possible to read a book while being over a foot away from the light source.

Another Englishman, Warren de la Rue improved on countryman Humphry Davy's platinum light source by enclosing it in a vacuum tube. The lack of oxygen in a vacuum enclosure prevents the light medium from catching fire and burning out because of the high temperature. Although the light did last for a considerable length of time and thus had efficiency, the high cost of platinum prevented the invention from becoming popular.

American inventor John Wellington Starr was granted with the first patent for a lamp with a carbon-based filament in 1854 and in 1872, Russian national Alexander Nikolayevich Lodygin produced the first incandescent lamp for which he got a patent for.

It wasn't until seven years later in 1879 that Thomas Edison picked-up on Lodygin's incandescent lamp and made his first incandescent light bulb using platinum as the light source. Because this didn't last that long, he was forced to thousands of other possible materials until finally coming-up with an incandescent lamp with a carbon-based filament that could last for 1500 hours in 1880.

Because UK-based inventor Joseph Swan already held an 1850 patent for a light bulb with carbonized paper filaments, he was able to take Edison to court for infringement and won. Edison's various electric companies merged with each other and in 1892 and after becoming one with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, it became The General Electric Company.
Jo is an author and publisher for ‘Litelec' (http://www.litelec.co.uk), a UK firm that specializes in the supply of electric light bulbs, light fittings, electrical accessories and related products for household and business use which they retail at especially reasonable prices. If you want to trim down your electricity fees and also contribute an important role to the safety of the ecosystem then start by utilizing G9 bulbs at home and if you have further electrical products and accessories requirement then check out Litelec.