Who invented the electric lamp. The history of the lamp or why is the lamp round? Edison's creation of the light bulb
The light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison in 1879, right? Many people know about this and teach it in school. However, there is more to this important and much-needed item than just the name of its creator, Mr. Edison. The history of the light bulb actually began nearly 70 years earlier. In 1806, Humphry Davy, an Englishman, demonstrated a powerful electric lamp to the royal society. The Davy lamp produced illumination by creating blinding electrical sparks between two carbon rods. This device, known as the "arc lamp", was impractical for widespread use. The light, as if from a welding torch, was too bright for use in living and working areas. The device also required a huge power source and battery, which Davy's model quickly used up.
As time went on, electrical generators were invented that could feed electric arcs. This has found its application where a bright light source was simply necessary: at lighthouses and in public institutions. Later, arc lamps were used in war, because powerful searchlights could track enemy aircraft. Today you can see similar lighting near cinemas or at the opening of new stores.
1. Who invented the incandescent light bulb?
Inventors in the 19th century wanted to find a way to use the lamp both at home and at work. A completely new method of creating electric light was needed. This method of generating light is known as "filament".
Scientists knew that if you take some materials and run enough electricity through them, they will heat up. At a certain heating temperature, they begin to glow. The problem with this method was that with prolonged use, the material could burst into flames or melt. If the incandescent lamp were made more practical, these two problems would be solved.
The inventors realized that the only way to keep them from burning was to prevent them from coming into contact with oxygen. Oxygen is a necessary ingredient in the combustion process. Since oxygen is present in the atmosphere, the only way to avoid a fire was to enclose the burner in a glass container, or "lamp". That is to limit contact with air. In 1841, British inventor Frederick de Molains patented a lamp using this technique in combination with platinum filament and carbon. The American John Starr also received a patent in 1845 for a lamp using a vacuum combined with a carbon burner. Many others, including the English chemist Joseph Swan, improved and patented versions of vacuum lamps with burners of various materials and shapes. However, none had a practical application for everyday use. Swan's lamp, for example, used carbon paper, which quickly crumbled after burning.
2. Who invented the light bulb Edison or Yablochkov?
It was obvious that incandescent lamps would bring huge financial success if they were improved. Therefore, many inventors continued to work on finding a solution. The young and brash inventor Thomas Edison entered the race in 1878 to create the best lamp. Edison was already known in the world for the creation of the telephone transmitter and the phonograph. In October of that year, having been working on the project for several months, he declared in the newspapers: "I solved the problem of electric light!" This sweeping statement was enough to drive down the stocks of the gas companies whose lamps provided the lighting of the day.
As it turned out, Edison's announcement was premature. He only had an idea how to solve the problems of electric incandescent lamps. Edison thought he would solve the problem by building a temperature-sensitive switch in the lamp that would turn off when the temperature was too high. It was a good idea, but unfortunately it didn't work. To keep the lamp cool enough, the switches actuated too quickly. This led to a constant flicker, which made the lamps unusable (the same principle is now used in Christmas garlands).
It soon became clear to everyone who worked in Edison's lab that a different approach was needed. Edison decides to hire young physicist Francis Upton from Princeton University to work on the project. Up until this point, Edison lab staff had tried idea after idea. Under Upton's leadership, they also began to pay attention to existing patents and achievements in order to avoid such errors. The team also began doing basic research about the properties of the materials it was working with.
One of the results of testing the properties of materials was the realization that any thread has a high electrical resistance. All materials have some amount of "friction" when electricity passes through it. Materials with high resistance heat up more easily. Edison only needed to test high-resistance materials to find what he was looking for.
The inventor began to think not only about electric light separately, but also about the whole electrical system. How big does a generator need to be to light up a nearby area? What voltage is needed to light the house?
By October 1879, Edison's team began to see the first results. On the 22nd, a thin carbon filament burned for 13 hours of the experiment. The longer time was achieved by creating a better vacuum inside the lamp (less oxygen inside the lamp slowed down the burning process). Charcoal organic materials were tested and Japanese bamboo was found to be the best. By the end of 1880, charred bamboo fibers burned for almost 600 hours. Filaments have proven to be the best form to increase the electrical resistance of materials.
Charred bamboo had a high resistance and fit well into the scheme of building an entire electrical system. In 1882, the Edison Electrical Light Company was founded, which had its stations located on Pearl Street, providing New York with light. In 1883 Macy's shop was the first to install new incandescent light bulbs.
3. Edison vs. Swan.
Meanwhile in England, Joseph Swan continued to work on electric light bulbs after seeing that new pumps made better vacuums. Swan created a lamp that was good for display but impractical in actual use. Swan used a thick carbon rod that left soot inside the lamp. Also, the low resistance of the rod meant that the lamp was using too much power. Seeing the success of Edison lamps, Swan used these advances to create his own lamps. After founding his company in England, Swan was sued by Edison for copyright infringement. In the end, the two inventors decided to end the dispute and join forces. They founded Edison-Swan United, which became one of the world's largest light bulb manufacturers.
So Edison invented the electric lamp? Not really. The incandescent lamp was invented before him. However, he created the first practical lamp along with an electrical system, which is his great achievement.
Edison's name is also associated with the invention of the telephone transmitter, the phonograph, and the mimeograph. And his incandescent lamp is used to this day. This is a testament to how great the work of Edison and his team is. After all, they transferred this invention from the laboratory to the house.
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December 20, 1879 American scientist Thomas Edison patented the electric light bulb. It is he who in the United States is considered to be the inventor of this device, although in fact Edison only improved existing developments.
AiF.ru decided to follow how the best minds of mankind created an incandescent lamp.
Why can't the light bulb have a single inventor?
The fact is that in the 19th century, scientists from around the world experimented with electricity, and they all knew very well that some materials begin to glow under the influence of current. The task of these researchers was to create such a lighting device that could be used in everyday life. He had to work at least a few hours. With this, scientists had big problems. Materials through which electricity was passed almost immediately either melted or flared up. Realizing that ignition occurs only in an oxygen environment, the inventors tried to place the burner in some kind of transparent container, inside of which there would be a vacuum or gas.
Which scientists created the first incandescent lamps?
In 1840 a British astronomer Warren De la Rue placed a coil of platinum wire in a vacuum tube and passed an electric current through it. However, the high cost and short service life of this device made its practical use impractical.
In 1838 the Belgian inventor Jobar designed a carbon incandescent lamp that burned for about half an hour.
In the 50-60s of the XIX century, a German scientist Heinrich Goebel improved the incandescent lamp by creating a vacuum in the bulb around the filament. However, the design of the device turned out to be too fragile, and the lamp itself burned for only a few hours.
First commercial application
The creation of the first incandescent lamps suitable for commercial use is associated with names Alexandra Lodygin, Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. It was they, independently of each other, who achieved a stable, bright and durable glow of carbon incandescent lamps in vacuum flasks and patented their inventions in the 1870s: in 1874 Lodygin received a Russian patent, in 1878 Swan received a British patent, and a year later he patented his invention. invention in the USA and Edison.
Edison created the first incandescent lamp company: using carbonized bamboo fiber, he and a team of scientists managed to achieve a lamp duration of more than 1200 hours - this was a technological breakthrough of that time. In the early 1880s, Edison formed a joint venture with Swan the British company Edison and Swan, which became the largest manufacturer of electric lamps of its time.
The famous inventor also had a hand in the invention of batteries - batteries that can be recharged multiple times. At the end of the 19th century, the nickel-cadmium battery was invented by the Swede Waldemar Jungner, but until they reached the United States, Edison's iron-nickel batteries were popular. For example, they were installed on the Detroit Electric electric car.
Modern incandescent lamp
In the 1890s, Lodygin, who moved to the United States, experimented with refractory materials to create an incandescent filament. He suggested using tungsten, which is used in modern light bulbs. By the way, the first commercial lamp with a tungsten filament in the United States was produced by General Electric according to the Lodygin patent, which was sold to it in 1906.
In 1910 William David Coolidge, who worked at General Electric, invented an industrial method for the production of tungsten filament, and another General Electric scientist Irving Langmuir used an inert gas to fill lamp bulbs, which significantly increased their operating time and increased light output. These are the incandescent lamps we use today.
American inventor Thomas Edison is credited with developing the first practical light bulb in 1879. However, the history of the invention of the light bulb is not so simple, as many scientists took part in it, each of whom contributed, which ultimately led to this achievement - an affordable, durable and safe incandescent lamp that generates light for a long time.
History of electric lighting
To find out who invented the light bulb, we first need to travel back more than 200 years to the laboratory of Humphrey Davy, an eminent English chemist and inventor. In 1800, Davy attached two wires with carbon sticks to a battery, which made it possible to demonstrate a bright arc of light between the carbon electrodes. This led to the electric arc lamp, the first widely used type of electric light and the first commercially successful form of electric lamp. Of course, various inventors improved upon Davy's design by adding spring systems as well as rare earth salts to the electrodes, which increased the brightness of the arc.
Electric arc lamps have been popular for decades due to their high brightness, capable of illuminating huge factory interiors or entire streets. For most of the 19th century, this was the only type of electric lighting for large areas, and it was the cheapest street lighting option compared to gas or oil lamps. However, the carbon rods had to be replaced so often that it turned into a full-time job. What's more, the lamps emitted dangerous ultraviolet radiation, generated noise and flicker when lit, and posed a serious fire hazard. Many buildings, such as theaters, burned down as a result of the excessive heat and sparks created by electric arc lamps. And although these lamps were suitable for streets and huge halls, they were completely impractical for lighting houses and small rooms.
The world needed better lighting technology and many inventors worked hard to find the perfect solution. Fame and fortune were surely promised to those who would succeed. But the path was riddled with many problems.
Vacuum
In 1840, British physicist Warren de la Rue proposed a new light bulb design that involved running a platinum coil inside a vacuum tube to minimize exposure to oxygen. However, the high cost of platinum prevented this design from being a commercial success. In 1841, Frederic de Moleyens submitted the first patent for an incandescent vacuum lamp.
Then, in 1850, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan began working on a light bulb using carbonized paper filaments instead of platinum in a vacuum glass bulb. By 1860, a British inventor had received a patent for a carbon-filament partial vacuum incandescent lamp. The problem with this device was that it lacked a vacuum and an adequate electrical source, making it inefficient, the lamp burned out too quickly.
Joseph Swan later made some improvements. At first, he worked with a thread of carbon paper, but found that they quickly burned out. Finally, in 1878, Swan demonstrated a new electric lamp in Newcastle, England, which used a carbon filament derived from cotton. Swan's electric light bulb could last 13.5 hours, and his house became the first house in the world to be lit by electric light. In November 1880, Swan received a British patent for his invention.
The American inventor and businessman Thomas Edison followed developments closely. He realized that the main problem with Swan's original design was the use of thick carbon filament. Edison believed that it should be thin and have a high electrical resistance. He adapted designs from an 1875 patent he purchased from inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans, demonstrating his incandescent lamp in December 1879, which could last 40 hours. Edison's use of thinner filaments and a better vacuum gave him an edge in the race. He then sued Swan for patent infringement.
By 1880, "Edison bulbs" worked 1200 hours and were quite reliable. However, this breakthrough required rigorous testing, for which more than 3,000 examples of incandescent lamps were used between 1878 and 1880. What's more, Edison's engineers at Menlo Park tested over 6,000 plants to determine which type of carbon would burn the longest, and finally settled on carbonized bamboo filament. Most modern incandescent lamps use tungsten filaments.
Later, Edison researchers gradually improved the design and production of filaments. In the early 20th century, Edison's team introduced filament improvers that stopped the darkening of the inside surfaces of glass bulbs.
Unfortunately for Edison, Swan's patent turned out to be a strong claim - at least in the United Kingdom. In the end, they joined forces and created the Edison-Swan United company, which later became the world's largest manufacturer of light bulbs.
In 1880, Edison also founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company in New York, financed by JP Morgan. This company built the first power plants that powered the new patented light bulbs. Edison Electric would later merge with the companies of two other inventors, William Sawyer and Albon Maine, and still later with the Thomson-Houston Company, eventually becoming the General Electric Company, which is still one of the largest corporations in the world to this day.
Who invented the light bulb
Edison was not the first inventor to work on light bulbs. In fact, by the time he started working on his first projects, the light bulb already existed, with about 20 different inventors around the world preparing their patents. At the same time, many Russian inventors were working on their devices (Lodygin, Kon, Kozlov and Bulygin). Edison's design was simply the most practical, which explains his worldwide success.
In 1809, the Englishman Delarue builds the first incandescent lamp (with a platinum spiral). In 1838, the Belgian Jobar invents the charcoal incandescent lamp. In 1854, the German Heinrich Göbel developed the first "modern" lamp - charred bamboo thread in an evacuated vessel. In the next 5 years, he developed what many call the first practical lamp. In 1860, the English chemist and physicist Joseph Wilson Swan demonstrated the first results and received a patent, but difficulties in obtaining a vacuum led to the fact that Swan's lamp did not work long and inefficiently.
On July 11, 1874, Russian engineer Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin received a patent number 1619 for a filament lamp. As a filament, he used a carbon rod placed in an evacuated vessel.
In 1875, V.F. Didrikhson improved Lodygin's lamp by pumping air out of it and using several hairs in the lamp (if one of them burned out, the next one turned on automatically).
English inventor Joseph Wilson Swan received a British patent in 1878 for a carbon fiber lamp. In his lamps, the fiber was in a rarefied oxygen atmosphere, which made it possible to obtain very bright light.
In the second half of the 1870s, the American inventor Thomas Edison conducted research work in which he tried various metals as a thread. In 1879 he patents a platinum filament lamp. In 1880, he returned to carbon fiber and created a lamp with a lifespan of 40 hours. At the same time, Edison invented the household rotary switch. Despite such a short lifespan, his lamps are replacing the gas lighting used until then.
In the 1890s, A. N. Lodygin invented several types of lamps with filaments made of refractory metals. Lodygin suggested using tungsten filaments in lamps (these are used in all modern lamps) and molybdenum and twisting the filament in the form of a spiral. He made the first attempts to pump air out of the lamps, which kept the thread from oxidizing and increased their service life many times over. The first American commercial lamp with a tungsten filament was subsequently produced under Lodygin's patent. He also made gas-filled lamps (with carbon filament and nitrogen filling).
Since the late 1890s, lamps have appeared with an incandescent filament made of magnesium oxide, thorium, zirconium and yttrium (Nernst lamp) or a filament of metallic osmium (Auer lamp) and tantalum (Bolton and Feuerlein lamp). In 1904, the Hungarians Dr. Sandor Yust and Franjo Hanaman received patent No. 34541 for the use of tungsten filament in lamps. In Hungary, the first such lamps were produced, which entered the market through the Hungarian company Tungsram in 1905. In 1906, Lodygin sold a patent for a tungsten filament to General Electric.
In the same 1906, in the USA, he built and put into operation a plant for the electrochemical production of tungsten, chromium, and titanium. Due to the high cost of tungsten, the patent only finds limited application. In 1910, William David Coolidge invents an improved method for producing tungsten filament. Subsequently, the tungsten filament displaces all other types of filaments.
The remaining problem with the rapid evaporation of a filament in a vacuum was solved by the American scientist, a well-known specialist in the field of vacuum technology, Irving Langmuir, who, working since 1909 at General Electric, introduced into production the filling of lamp bulbs with inert, more precisely, heavy noble gases (in in particular, argon), which significantly increased their operating time and increased light output.
efficiency and durability
Almost all of the energy supplied to the lamp is converted into radiation. Losses due to heat conduction and convection are small. For the human eye, however, only a small range of wavelengths of this radiation is available. The main part of the radiation lies in the invisible infrared range and is perceived as heat.
The efficiency of incandescent lamps reaches its maximum value of 15% at a temperature of about 3400 K. At practically achievable temperatures of 2700 K (typical 60 W lamp), the efficiency is 5%.
As the temperature rises, the efficiency of the incandescent lamp increases, but its durability is significantly reduced. At a filament temperature of 2700 K, the lamp life is approximately 1000 hours, at 3400 K only a few hours, with a 20% increase in voltage, the brightness doubles. At the same time, the lifetime is reduced by 95%.
Reducing the supply voltage, although it lowers the efficiency, but increases the durability. So, lowering the voltage by half (when connected in series) reduces the efficiency by about 4-5 times, but increases the lifetime by almost a thousand times. This effect is often used when it is necessary to provide reliable emergency lighting without special requirements for brightness, for example in stairwells. Often, for this, when powered by alternating current, the lamp is connected in series with the diode, due to which the current flows into the lamp only during half the period.
Since the cost of an incandescent lamp consumed during the service life of electricity is ten times higher than the cost of the lamp itself, there is an optimal voltage at which the cost of the luminous flux is minimal. The optimal voltage is slightly higher than the nominal voltage, therefore, ways to increase durability by lowering the supply voltage are absolutely unprofitable from an economic point of view.
The limited lifetime of an incandescent lamp is due to a lesser extent to the evaporation of the filament material during operation and to a greater extent to the inhomogeneities that arise in the filament. Uneven evaporation of the filament material leads to the appearance of thin areas with increased electrical resistance, which leads to even greater heating and evaporation of the material in such places. When one of these constrictions becomes so thin that the filament material at that point melts or completely evaporates, the current is interrupted and the lamp fails.
The greatest wear of the filament occurs when the lamp is suddenly energized, therefore, it is possible to significantly increase its service life using various kinds of soft start devices.
A tungsten filament has a cold resistivity that is only 2 times higher than that of aluminum. When a lamp burns out, it often happens that the copper wires that connect the base contacts to the spiral holders burn out. So, a conventional 60-watt lamp consumes over 700 watts at the time of switching on, and a 100-watt lamp consumes more than a kilowatt. As the spiral warms up, its resistance increases, and the power drops to the nominal value.
To smooth peak power, thermistors with a strongly falling resistance as they warm up, reactive ballast in the form of a capacitance or inductance, dimmers (automatic or manual) can be used. The voltage on the lamp increases as the spiral warms up and can be used to shunt the ballast with automatics. Without turning off the ballast, the lamp can lose from 5 to 20% of the power, which can also be beneficial for increasing the resource.
Low-voltage incandescent lamps at the same power have a longer life and light output due to the larger cross section of the incandescent body. Therefore, in multi-lamp fixtures (chandeliers), it is advisable to use the series connection of lamps for a lower voltage instead of the parallel connection of lamps for mains voltage. For example, instead of six 220V 60W lamps connected in parallel, use six 36V 60W lamps connected in series, that is, replace six thin spirals with one thick one.
Varieties of lamps
Incandescent lamps are divided into (arranged in order of increasing efficiency):
- vacuum (the simplest);
- argon (nitrogen-argon);
- krypton (approximately + 10% brightness from argon);
- xenon (2 times brighter than argon);
- halogen (filler I or Br, 2.5 times brighter than argon, long service life, do not like undercooking, as the halogen cycle does not work);
- halogen with two flasks (more efficient halogen cycle due to better heating of the inner flask);
- xenon-halogen (filler Xe + I or Br, the most effective filler, up to 3 times brighter than argon);
- xenon-halogen with an IR reflector (since most of the lamp radiation is in the IR range, the reflection of IR radiation into the lamp significantly increases efficiency; they are made for hunting lamps);
- incandescent with a coating that converts infrared radiation to the visible range. Lamps with a high-temperature phosphor are being developed, which, when heated, emit a visible spectrum.
From Edison's early experiments to our "fluorescent" future, this issue highlights the light bulb's history.
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1. "Bright idea."
Thomas Edison was not the only inventor of the incandescent lamp. But it was the light bulb, patented by Edison in 1880, that became popular in the market, brought light to homes and made Edison rich, who at that time was 33 years old.
2. "Light work".
In the late 19th century, Edison merged with the Thompson-Houston Electric Company to form the General Electric Company. The lamp factory, located in Harrison, New Jersey, was originally built to manufacture light bulbs invented by Edison, but in 1930 was converted into a factory for the production of radio receivers for a branch of General Electric. In 1976, the plant was closed and currently a shopping center is located on this site.
3. "Golden time".
In 1928, Joan Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown danced under tungsten lamps in Our Dancing Daughters. Invented in 1903, tungsten filaments made lamps brighter and more durable, ideal for lighting newly minted Hollywood stars.
4. Bright light and big crash.
1929 marked the 50th anniversary of the Edison light bulb. On this occasion, a national celebration was planned. Anniversary events were held from May to October. The Golden Jubilee celebrations culminated in a carefully planned banquet for 500 of America's foremost scientists and intellectuals. The evening hosted by President Hoover was a resounding success. In fact, the anniversary was a farewell toast to the golden age of American invention, since nine days later.
5. Lighting the way.
In the 30s, electric light became widespread in everyday life, including the very first headlights. Not elegant, yes, but no worse than Dadaist fashion.
7. Luxury.
The post-war American boom did not stop solely at improving light bulbs. Many manufacturers have spent decades improving camera flash. And in 1955, General Electric proved that there is no better way to advertise a new invention than to demonstrate it in the ears of a beautiful girl.
8. In the 1950s and 60s, the Miami-based Line Club announced a local girl who became the spokesperson for the annual Light to See charity, Miss Light. In 1954, the Miss Light crown was awarded to a University of Miami student who passed the baton to Sandy Verch. In 1955, Werch reached the finals of the Miss America Championship.
