Who invented the electric light bulb?
AT A GLANCE: The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, in particular, profoundly changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity. The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was invented in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. He was neither the first nor the only person trying to invent an incandescent light bulb. THE STORY RELATED INFO BOOKS VIDEOS WEB SITES QUOTATIONS HOW IT WORKS DID YOU KNOW? Invention: electric light bulb in 1879 Definition: noun / electric light bulb / incandescent lamp Function: An electric lamp in which a filament is heated to incandescence by an electric current. Today’s incandescent light bulbs use filaments made of tungsten rather than carbon of the 1880’s. Patent: 223,898 (US) issued January 27, 1880 Inventor: Thomas Alva Edison Criteria: First practical. Modern prototype. Entrepreneur.
Edison perfected it, some french guy invented it edit: ok I googled it The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc.
The tungsten filament was invented independently at about the same time by Joseph Swan in England and Thomas Alva Edison in America, 1878. [Feb 08 04 10:33 PM] gmackematix writes: I’m getting in a mess here. I meant tungsten filament bulb and it turns out that both Edison and Swan were using carbon filament bulbs. What is more, while Edison and Swan produced the first commercial incandescent lamps in October 1880 and early 1881 respectively, neither created the first practical electric lamp. This was produced much earlier, in 1835, by a self-taught Scottish scientist called James Bowman Lindsay. Whether this lamp, which didn’t have a filament, but provided enough light for him to write up his results by, counts as a bulb is debatable. As with many inventions, this looks like a series of developments by several men rather than the invention of an individual genius.
