We are talking about the internet, computers and many other technologies, but they would turn into meaningless concepts without electricity. Every device we use today works with electricity, we are illuminated with light bulbs and even the devices we use have a screen thanks to the small light bulbs inside. Many people know the answer to the question of who invented the light bulb as Thomas Edison, but when we examine the history, we come across different answers.
Yes, Thomas Edison is the person who patented the light bulb and many similar devices. However, this does not mean that Edison invented the light bulb. Even though it was patented in 1879, studies on light bulbs and electrical systems actually started in the first days of the 1800s. Let’s get lost in the dusty pages of history and take a closer look at the history of the light bulb, without which we cannot imagine living today.
The first bulb was copper wires in salt water:
Let’s go back to the year 1800, in Italy, and take a look at the laboratory of inventor Alessandro Volta. Alessandro Volta found a practical method of generating electricity, which he named after himself. Volta; With cardboard soaked in salt water, discs made of zinc and copper materials, and copper wires attached to the two ends of this pile, he was able to both transmit electric current and radiate a little light.
British inventor Humphry Davy had invented the world’s first electric lamp by connecting voltaic piles and coal iodines, while Alessandro Volta was describing this work in a letter to the Royal Society in England. This invention, made in 1802, is known as the Davy lamp. It was a first, but because it radiated a light too bright to be used in homes, it was only used as a reference in works of the period.
Bulb designs are evolving:
In 1840, the English scientist Warren de la Rue invented a light bulb that used a platinum filament instead of copper, but it did not find commercial response because platinum was very expensive. In 1848, William Staite, also an Englishman, developed a mechanism that extends the life of the lamps by regulating the movement of carbon rods, but the batteries required to operate this mechanism were not commercially available because they were quite expensive.
In 1850, English chemist Joseph Swan devised a system that would eliminate the cost problem of previous studies; using carbonized paper filaments instead of platinum. Swan, who received the patent for the light bulb he invented in 1860 in 1978, introduced this work in Newcastle in 1879. He used a vacuum tube to break the oxygen bond of the filaments. It was a beautiful lamp, but at that time the vacuum tube was not as useful a product as it is today.
Thomas Edison takes the stage:
At this point, our man Thomas Edison steps in and discovers that the problem with Joseph Swan’s light bulb is the filaments. He invents a much more practical light bulb by inventing a thin filament with high electrical resistance. He introduces this light bulb, which works with a less current, in 1879. First a rivalry and then a partnership begins between the two and they establish the Edison-Swan United company.
In 1874, Canadian inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans worked hard to patent a bulb made of a nitrogen-filled glass cylinder and carbon rods, but eventually sold the invention to Edison in 1879.
Thomas Edison moved his work to the United States in 1880 and opened the first electricity generating station in 1882. There were many other inventors such as William Sawyer and Albon Man in the USA at that time, but when they realized that they could not stand alone, they merged with Edison and established the General Electric company.
Bulbs are getting cheaper, more powerful and more practical:
Thomas Edison was a powerful figure, both commercially and politically. His whole purpose now was to develop light bulbs that he could produce much more cheaply. Edison and his team worked on more than 3,000 light bulb designs. They conducted special studies on more than 6,000 plants to find the most efficient filament.
The team’s work paid off, and they eventually developed a carbonized bamboo filament. This filament could burn for more than 1200 hours. This filament was used in long-term Edison lamps. In 1902, Willis R. Whitney, one of the engineers working with Edison, patented a system that would allow glass bulbs to burn much longer before they darken.
Working with the General Electric company, American physicist William David Coolidge developed tungsten, which has the highest melting point of all chemical substances in 1910. Tungsten is an excellent material for light bulb filament. It is known that tungsten is still used in many light bulbs even today.
A revolution in lighting: LED lights
LED lights that shape today’s technology world with their versions such as OLED and AMOLED have actually been used since the 1960s. Nick Holonyak, an American scientist working at General Electric, accidentally discovered LED light while doing laser studies. It has been known since the beginning of the 20th century that semiconductors emit light when exposed to an electric current, but Holonyak was the first to patent it.
Yellow and green colors have been added to LED lights over the years. Japanese – American scientists Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura discovered the blue LED in the 1990s. White LED light is obtained when the diodes of the blue LED light are coated with phosphors, so the invention is extremely important. Three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014 for their work.
Today, companies such as Phillips, Stack, Tesla and institutions such as NASA are developing much more advanced lighting technologies based on LED lights. There are bulbs that emit millions of different colors, remotely controlled ones, and even self-sensing ambient lighting. Interesting how it all started with copper wires in salt water
Centennial Light, which has been burning for more than a hundred years in spite of changing the bulbs once a week:
The name Centennial Light, meaning the light of the century, has been burning almost uninterruptedly since it was first turned on in 1901. Thanks to his dedication to work that defies these years, he was named in the Guinness Book of World Records, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and managed to print it in the General Electric records.
Centennial Light, which started its life as 30 watts, continues today as 4 watts. It was produced by the Shelby Electric Company in the late 1890s. The historical light bulb that works in the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department in the USA today; It holds the record as none of them were a bulb-related problem, although it was shut down once during transportation and once for a while due to the power supply.
After Centennial Light was first discovered in 1972, there has been a lot of news, reviews, documentaries, and artwork about it. It is thought that the bulb has such a long life because it burns constantly, emits low energy and is connected to a special power source. If you’re wondering if the Centennial Light is still on, you can follow it live via the link here.
Although the patent is in Thomas Edison, we answered the question of who invented the light bulb, whose invention has the signature of many people, and we talked about the details you need to know about the history of the light bulb. The fact that the journey that started with primitive systems hundreds of years ago illuminates the endless darkness of space today is as impressive as science fiction stories.
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