Lighting Facts: Who Invented the Lightbulb?

Chances are that if you grew up anytime in the last 50 years, you were taught that Thomas Alva Edison invented the light bulb. Dubbed the "Wizard of Menlo Park" for where his workshop was located, Edison invented a wide variety of things. The light bulb has been credited to being invented by Edison in 1879. The modern incandescent bulb is a complicated invention, and so is the story behind how it came to be.

The creation of the light bulb had a long road to get to where Edison took it in 1879. About three quarters of a century earlier, in 1806, an Englishman named Humphry Davy created a device called an "arc lamp". It produced light by creating an electric spark between two charcoal rods. It was incredibly bright and incompatible for almost every practical lighting application. The energy necessary to create and maintain the spark was also a limiting factor - the batteries used drained very quickly.

Eventually, generators to sustain the power needed for the arc lamp came around, as did some useful places for the arc lamp to be employed. Since the lamp created near blinding light, an ideal place for the lamp was in lighthouses. Some time later, giant searchlights used the arc lamp's power to detect enemy planes during the World Wars. Searchlights such as those are still in use today, but not for spotting enemy bombers. Now they are used for advertising and marketing purposes.

The Incandescent Light

It was clear that the light produced by the arc lamp could not be used in business or residential settings. There were a few innovative inventors that wanted to somehow subdivide the light from the arc lamp so they could replicate the manner used, but not the power. Some other scientists postulated that an entirely new method for harnessing electric light was the way to go. The manner they decided held the most promise was that of incandescence. Literally meaning the production of visible light by raising the temperature of an object, they set out to do just that.

19^th century inventors and scientists already were aware that the passage of electricity through an object caused it to heat up. Just as is the case with metal making, different materials glow when they get hot enough. The temperatures required to heat an object to the point of glowing usually have a devastating effect on the object itself. It normally will either erupt into flames or become a molten, liquid mess. The major hurdle to the incandescent light bulb stood in conquering the problem of which object to use.

Basically, inventors were applying enough electricity to different objects to make them burn, but they didn't want the objects to burn up. They wanted them to glow. Fire needs oxygen to grow and feed itself, and someone figured out that if you could enclose the process and keep oxygen out, the material would glow without burning. This is where the bulb of a light bulb comes in. They sealed the burning process with a glass container and pumped the air out. These glass enclosed light bulbs would later be used in home ceiling fans all over the world. These ceiling fans would then provide light for vision along with cooling air for comfort. Many patents were received for bulbs of various types, beginning with Englishman Frederick De Moylens in 1841. An American, J.W. Starr, received a similar patent in 1845, this time for using a vacuum in conjunction with the bulb. Other scientists attempted to improve upon the designs of the patented bulbs in an attempt to create a viable, working light source for use in the home and workplace. Another Englishman, chemist Joseph Swan, created a bulb that used carbonized paper as the medium. It never lasted very long after being lit, and proved to be impractical like all the others.

Edison Joins the Fray

Everyone who had any knowledge about the technology knew that electric lighting was the next big thing. Aside from everlasting, worldwide notoriety, the inventor that patented a viable bulb would be rich. In comes Thomas Edison, a youthful (albeit strong-willed) inventor who tried to make a better bulb in 1878. Already a world renowned inventor and innovator, Edison had invented the phonograph and a better stock market ticker. In October of 1878, a brash Edison publicly declared that he had solved the "problem of the subdivision of the electric light". This rash statement was all it took to crash the gas company stocks (since they provided the current form of light). (PDF)

Sitting here in the future, we know that Edison's declaration was ahead of its time. While he had an idea and the beginning of solving the problem, he had perfected nothing. Previous inventors has already tried to enclose a platinum burner in a vacuum, but their platinum melted every time. Being the crafty innovator he was, Edison had an idea to create a temperature switch that would stop the electric current when the temperature was too high. It sounded like a great idea, but the application of it failed when the switches turned the current off almost immediately. The effect was a constantly flickering bulb.

Edison hired Francis Upton, a young Princeton University physicist, to work on the incandescent bulb. Instead of trying different ideas among themselves, Upton decided they needed to study other patents that had been filed in an effort to avoid others mistakes. Basic research into the materials used to produce the glow was also instituted, leading to the realization that the material used in the bulb would need a high resistance to electricity. Armed with this new information, Edison and his staff knew they could narrow their search to only materials that had a high electrical resistance. In line with this new thinking, Edison also began to ponder the beginnings of the electrical grid. Such things as the amount of power necessary to light up a whole neighborhood, and the proper voltage that a house would need were now questions he needed to answer.

A year after Edison's bold statement about solving the problem, Edison and his fellow inventors began to see some light at the end of the tunnel. On October 22^nd, 1879, a carbonized cotton thread burned for around 13 hours. By modifying some of the variables, namely the vacuum inside the bulb, longer burn times were achieved. Other organic materials were carbonized and tested, with Japanese bamboo leading the pack in results. Over a year later, Edison's carbonized bamboo filaments (as they were now called), were able to burn for almost a month, over 600 hours. By 1882, the Edison Electrical Light Company had been created, with a generating station providing power to New York City. A year later, Macy's was the first store to install Edison's new incandescent bulbs.

Edison versus Swan

While Edison was busy innovating his bamboo bulb in America, Swan was busy doing the same in England. Swan had created a bulb that burned a carbon rod which filled the inside of the glass bulb with soot after a short time. Once Swan got the word that the material needed a high electrical resistance, he incorporated that into his bulbs and created his own company in England. After being sued by Edison for patent infringement, the two geniuses somehow decided to pool their collective resources. Edison-Swan United became one of the largest light bulb companies in the world.

This still leaves the original question unanswered. Did Edison invent the light bulb, or did Swan? While Edison did not really invent the light bulb, he invented the only bulb practical enough for use. He innovated other people's inventions and succeeded where they could not, even creating the electrical grid to support the lights. Of all the inventions that came out of the Menlo Park laboratory, the only one still in use is the incandescent light bulb.

Miscellaneous Light Facts

• Gas Lighting - Learn about the use of gas lighting and its eclipse by electricity.
• Street Lights - What did we use to power street lights before electricity came around?
• Early Lighting - Early 18th century technology that could have been the precursor to all indoor lighting.
• Bamboo Bulb - The Edison Museum's page on his bamboo bulb, the first practical bulb invented.
• No More Incandescents? - The bulb Edison pioneered may very well be on its way out.
• Compact Fluorescent Lights - Here is more information about how newer CFL bulbs stack up against regular incandescent bulbs.
• Invention Factory - Edison's Menlo Park laboratory was a marvel of inventing and innovating, staffed by geniuses.
• Bulb Patent - Here you can view the actual patent documents submitted by Edison for his light bulb.
• Powering the Bulbs - While the bulbs were being invented, no one knew how they were going to be powered. Learn more about powering the bulbs here.
• History of Lighting - You can learn about the complete history of lighting in condensed form here, along with pictures and video.

Article Written by Colby McTwain