At a glance of Light Bulb
Whenever we think about the History of Light bulb, we only remember our star guy Thomas Alva Edison, but the light bulb story neither starts with him nor ends. in today’s blog, we will discuss Incandescent bulbs, Fluorescent tubes, and LEDs
The history of the evolution of the light bulb is different than we think before inventing the light bulbs. People used to live in the dark most of the time, especially at night time, it’s another matter of fact that they use candles, torch, etc., but still, they are now that efficient source of light.
So how does the first man come up with the light bulb as the most interesting concept? First, large batteries are developed. While experimenting on them, scientists found two electrodes used in the batteries. Whenever an electric current jumps across the gap of the electric circuit between those two electrodes, it produces a bright light. These happened in somewhere 1800s, so the scientists thought that we could use this bright light to illuminate our world.
From here, the journey of the evolution of the light bulb starts.
Incandescent bulbs: starting of illumination journey
From the above experiments, scientists have known that we can produce light if we do the proper setup, so the first light bulb invented is an Electric arc lamp. Henry Davy was the inventor of the first light bulb. He was a British chemist. In 1809 he got the idea that if two wires from a battery are taken out and between the other ends of the wire, a charcoal strip as an electrode is attached can cause the carbon glow.
These arc lamps produce light by sparking of high current between two conducting electrodes. This was his idea of the first electric arc lamp. Later on, these bulbs are used for lighthouses and street lights.
But the disadvantage with this lap was they require large batteries to supply this heavy current. Due to the requirement of heavy current, the batteries get drain quickly. So this process becomes very costly, and light fluctuations are far too wide.
After nearly 10 years later, in 1820, Warren De La Rue was a British astronomer, chemist, and most famous for pioneering work in astronomical photography. Invented the platinum filament bulb.
He enclosed a platinum coil in a vacuum tube and passed an electric current to design this bulb. The concept behind this is that the melting point of platinum is very high, allowing it to operate at high temperatures, and that evacuated chambers would contain fewer gas molecules to react with platinum.
The advantage of platinum is that it lasts long. Still, platinum is very costly for general purposes, so these lamps are also not used for larger scales.
Enormous electric batteries (equal to 800 small batteries) create continuous binding light.
James Bowman Lindsay invented the world’s first the electric incandescent light bulb in 1835. Still, somehow he failed to get a patent to protect his invention. Therefore, in the light bulb history, we do not know James bowman as the first inventor of the incandescent light bulb.
After such a long duration in 1850, Edward Shepard struck with the idea of incandescent arc lamps using charcoal filament. This caused the invention of a new type of lamp, a mixture of both variations.
Heinrich Göbel, also known as Henry Geobel, was a mechanic and inventor. In 1854 he independently developed a design for the incandescent light bulb.
It was the first practical incandescent bulb and way before Edison’s invention. But like James Bowman, he also didn’t patent his work. There was a big dispute between Edison and Göbel regarding this invention.
Later, he filed a case in court. Still, the court’s decision was established in Edison’s priority because no evidence from Göbel side would prove that he invented it first. Though he was the one who invented the first practical incandescent light bulb in 1854.
In 1860 vacuum chamber was created by Joseph Swan. He was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor to prolong the incandescence of filament inside the bulb. Incandescence is a hot body property that emits electromagnetic radiation when applied to a high temperature. And these radiations are used to illuminate.
Sir Joseph Wilson swan developed the first incandescent lamp in 1878, which was used to illuminate homes and public buildings. This was a long-lasting bulb that provided light approximately for 13.5 hrs.
This lamp was able to supply this many hours because of its unique filaments design; the filament is made from carbon fibre derived from cotton.
After the research of Joseph Swan in 1875, Herman Sprengel also made some improvements in the light bulb by inventing a mercury vapour pump. This pump is useful to create a vacuum inside the bulb.
These vacuum pumps drop mercury falling through the small-bore capillary tube, which is used to tap the air from the system to be evacuated. This invention of Joseph Swan is based on De La Rue’s discovery, which explains if we create a create vacuum inside the bulb, the eliminating gases light would cut down on blackening within the bulb, allowing the filament to last longer.
After reading so many inventions on the light bulb, now is when our star guy Edison comes into the picture for the invention of carbon filament that lasts 40 hrs. he invented the carbon filament in 1879.
Based on the designs of inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans. Edison placed a filament in an oxygen-less bulb. Although some researchers claim that this wasn’t his original idea, he bought the patent of Henry and Matthew in 1875.
And later, in 1880, finally Edison found a way to cause the lamp to last 600hrs and which is reliable enough.
When an electric current is passed through a metal filament wire, it heats the filament to a high temperature until it glows. The hot filament is protected from air by a glass bulb filled with inert gases. This is the logic, or you can say the principle behind the incandescent lights of that time.
In 1912 after a very long duration, Irving Langmuir invented the argon and nitrate filled the bulb (Nobel gases), a tightly coiled filament and hydrogen coating on the inside of the bulb.
The use of these Nobel gases improved the efficiency and durability of the bulb.
Fluorescent tubes: a new way of light
There were two Germans in the 19th century. One was Glassblower, Heinrich Geissler, and another was physician Julius Plücker. While experimenting, they discovered that if we remove almost all the air from a long glass tube and, after passing the electric current through it, the light can be produced. This is way different from those general incandescent lamps. This unique structure of the lamp is known as the Geissler tube.
It is a discharge lamp, neon lights, low-pressure sodium vapor lamps, and fluorescent lights. All these lamps are inspired by discharge lamps.
In the 1890s, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla experimented with fluorescent lamps. Still, nighters of them got successful enough to produce efficient light.
Peter Copper Hewitt became one of the first inventors of fluorescent lamps in the 1900s. He first created a blue-green colored light by passing an electric current through mercury vapor and ballast; the ballast is a device connected to a light bulb. It acts as a regulator and regulates the flow of current.
These fluorescent lamps created by Hewitt are more efficient than incandescent lamps. However, due to the color of light, it has few practical uses.
By the late 1920s and early 1930s, experiments on neon tubes coated with phosphors by European researchers. And the material phosphor is used because it absorbs ultraviolet light and converts the invisible light into good white light.
In the 1980s, CFLs hit the market of bulbs.
LEDs: the future here
1962 Nick Holonyak, Jr, the father of LED(light-emitting diode), invented the first-ever LED light that we are using nowadays to illuminate our homes, streets, factories, and many more places.
LED is a type of solid-state lighting; it uses semiconductors to convert electrical energy into light. And the size of these lights is very compact.
In the past few years, many major changes occurred in the designs and shapes of LED lights, but we never shift our light source because LED is the most efficient source. And can last very long without consuming more electricity.
So this was the timeline for the evolutions of light bulbs.
Stay tuned with mundus2035. We will post on the evolution of some of these interesting topics very soon.
