Invention of the light bulb

The light bulb is one of the inventions that are most important has had for the progress of civilization. Before the advent of this invention, man could only be illuminated by fire, candles or oil lamps. The authorship of the light bulb is a very controversial matter, because there are other inventors apart from the famous Edison. Due to the importance of this invention, and due to the controversy surrounding its invention, today in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we are going to offer you a summary of the invention of the light bulb.

The incandescent bulb or lamp is a device that produces light by heating by Joule effect of a metallic filament until it turns red white, achieving it through the passage of an electric current. Currently its use is less every day, being replaced by other technologies such as LED.

The light bulb is one of the inventions most used by man throughout its history. You could say that his invention was a total change in the way in which the human being lived, life being unthinkable in recent decades without the light bulb. She has been rated by the magazine

Life as the second most important invention of mankind, and it is not without reason to receive that recognition.

To continue with this lesson on the summary of the invention of the light bulb, we must talk about the inventors of the light bulb and, thus, we will understand the controversy surrounding this invention.

Thomas Alva Edison and the invention of the light bulb

In 1879, Thomas Alva Edison showed the world for the first time the electric lamp with a light bulb, which was on for 48 hours. A few months later, Edison presented in his laboratory a circuit made up of 40 light bulbs, which he turned on and off, astonishing all the people who went to see this new invention.

Just one month after filing, on January 27, 1880, Edison was granted a patent for the light bulb. The controversy came at this time, since there were other previous inventors who proved to have invented light bulbs before Edison. Some of these characters were Joseph Swan, Humphry Davy or Henry Woodward, who were able to demonstrate that they had created inventions of great similarity to those of Edison.

The history of the invention of the light bulb

Humphry Davy in 1809 he connected a carbon filament to the two poles of a battery, producing light. The operation of Davy's invention was not as correct as Edison's light bulb, but the number of years that elapsed between the two inventions must be taken into account.

Years later, Warren de la Rue, An English chemist, he changed the carbon filament that Davy had used for a platinum one, connected to two electrical poles inside a glass body. The creation of the Rue worked better than the Davy apparatus, but it was expensive to manufacture, making it unfeasible to market it.

All these advances led to Joseph Wilson Swan, a British physicist, to invent the light bulb. Swan got the patent in 1860, but only in Great Britain, he was not recognized as the inventor of the light bulb worldwide. You could say that Edison only improved on Swan's invention, with the British physicist being the actual inventor of the light bulb.

Edison and Swan, the controversy over the invention of the light bulb

Despite the controversy over receiving authorship, Edison and Swan had a good relationship, even creating a company together, called Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company Limited. This company was in charge of improving the bulb, being responsible for increasing manufacturing and creating bulbs that lasted much longer.

Another person to talk about when explaining the invention of the light bulb is Nicholas Tesla, who is usually forgotten when talking about the invention of the light bulb. Tesla was the one who discovered alternating current, which made the bulbs last much longer.

The Serbian Engineer came to work with Thomas EdisonBut their bad relationship meant that a long employment relationship never existed, so Tesla took no credit for inventing the Edison light bulb. For many Tesla is the true inventor of the light bulb, since without his discoveries the light bulbs would not have been the success that they were.