Let Us Take Another Peek At Cheap Light Bulbs And Trace Its Roots
Incandescent lamps or Light bulbs are available in different forms. As there are standard ones that we are familiar with, there are likewise those that are produced for a certain use. Projector bulbs, for example, are being used for projectors. Then there is the full-spectrum light bulb, which emits a specific light named white light and are being used to remedy sickness attributable to insufficient exposure to sunlight.
But, it would be interesting to discover how cheap light bulbs have come to be available. Take note that “cheap” at this point is being used to mean commercial or that any average consumer can afford. We bear this in mind for the reason that prior to the development of light bulbs, there were a set of trials and discoveries that took place. Even if the creation of the incandescent lamp is usually attributed to Thomas Edison, there are a lot of other scientists that have contributed to what we have now.
It was in 1802 that Humphry Davy of Great Britain invented the first incandescent light. The current passed through a fine narrow piece of platinum, a metal that has a very high melting point. The light may have not been bright enough and did not stay long enough, however this demanded for more discoveries and experiments while waiting for the first convenient light bulb was created by Thomas Edison in 1879.
Another contribution was from Warren de la Rue, who contained a coiled platinum filament in a vacuum tube where electric current passed through it. It was an efficient design, but as you know, platinum is expensive and, thus, not practical for commercial purposes. More experiments and styles were produced, and these are those by Frederick de Moleyns (1841), John W. Starr (1845), Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin (1851), and A.N. Lodygin (1872).
Additional efforts to coming up with practical incandescent lamps were made before Edison. Connected with these efforts are Joseph Wilson Swan (1850) and Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans (1874). Whilst Swan worked with carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb, Evans and Woodward created their incandescent lamps with various sizes and shapes of carbon rods placed between electrodes in glass cylinders that were filled with nitrogen.
Then there came Thomas Edison, who, in 1879, started to perform major study on developing a useful light bulb. He performed numerous experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, but eventually, he returned to making use of a carbon filament. The patent for his work was given to him in 1880.
Throughout the years, more improvements have been made to incandescent lamps. We nowadays benefit from various kinds of light bulbs, such as halogen light bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs, and other specialty light bulbs. Needless to say, we would not have been using them if not for the great brains responsible for the creation of practical incandescent lamps.