Modern people can no longer imagine their lives without the bright light that electric light bulbs emit.
However, few people think about who invented the light bulb and how it happened.
The evolution of this electrical device is complex and lengthy.
Many great scientists took part in the work, who gradually improved the light bulb to make it the way we see it now.
Even in ancient times, people made attempts to make devices that would provide light at night. The first known "light bulbs" used for lighting were powered by fat. For this purpose, any vegetable oil or animal fat was used. Fat was poured into a clay vessel, a cloth wick was dipped into it, and it was set on fire.
Later, people began to extract oil, and then the kerosene lamp replaced the “candle in a container.” Then the first candles based on beeswax and pork fat appeared. However, all of the light sources described above had drawbacks, so scientists worked on inventing safer and more durable devices.
This is interesting! The first safe lamp, which was widely used for lighting, appeared around the second half of the 19th century. It is during this period that a large number of discoveries that are closely related to the development of electricity.
History of invention
With the widespread introduction of electricity into various sectors of the economy and everyday life, the first lighting devices began to appear. The light bulb is a great achievement of mankind. In the 18th century, 2 types of lamps appeared: arc and filament. The first lighting elements appeared earlier, they worked due to the phenomenon of arc discharge. It is expressed in the appearance of an electrical discharge between two slightly separated conductors (metal or coal). This phenomenon was studied by the scientist V. Petrov, and a little later by the English physicist Devi.
However, the arc device was capable of shining for a maximum of 5 minutes, which is why it was not used in practice. The light bulb was equipped big amount electrodes between two rods, which had to be frequently moved towards each other, as they quickly burned out. In addition, the product periodically emitted flickering.
In 1844, Foucault invented a design using hard coke conductors. This type of light bulb began to be used to illuminate streets. However, the high-power battery required large material costs, so its use was short-term. A little later, a device with a clock mechanism was created that automatically brings the electrodes closer after a certain time as they burn. However, such lamps did not find widespread use; at this time, scientists were inventing a more attractive light source.
Not all people know who actually invented the current light bulb. Most of them assign the title of inventor to Thomas Edison, but many scientists (including Russians) worked on the creation of the lighting element.
Inventors from different countries conducted experiments during which filaments were placed in different types environment. They aimed to create a light bulb that could be used to illuminate living spaces. For this purpose, the effect of incandescence was studied different materials, current was passed through them, they warmed up and gave off a glow. It was important for the inventors to prevent the conductors from overheating, melting or burning, and also to find a balance between the filament and the environment in which it was located. It was necessary to protect the conductor from the destructive effects of air, for this they used a container, that is, a lamp bulb.
Read also How to connect two light bulbs or two lamps to one switch
One of the first incandescent lamps appeared in the first half of the 18th century; its electrodes were cast from platinum. However, such a conductor was quite fragile and expensive, so it was not popular.
The carbon filament design also did not become popular, since it burned quickly due to the presence of oxygen in the flask. Then they began to use conductors made of charred bamboo in the device, and the oxygen was pumped out of the flask. This is the first modern lamp, but it is not yet ideal.
Towards the end of the 18th century, scientists invented a light bulb with a molybdenum and tungsten filament. She was able to work for 30 minutes. Then the design was supplemented with several coal hairs, which burned in turn.
Then American scientists began to refine existing technologies.
Stages of development
If you are still interested in who invented the incandescent lamp, then pay attention to the chronology, which is presented in the table:
| Date in years | Incandescent light bulb development event |
| 1803 | Petrov from Russia produced a voltaic arc using a powerful battery. |
| 1808 | G. Davy (England) also used an arc discharge for lighting, but not for long. |
| 1838 | Jobard from Belgium invented a lamp that was equipped with carbon rods. |
| 1840 | The English astronomer Delarue presented his invention in the form of a lamp with platinum conductors. |
| 1841 | Thanks to the efforts of F. Moleyn from England, devices with platinum rods and carbon filler appeared. |
| 1845 | King replaced the platinum conductors with carbon electrodes. |
| 1854 | G. Gebel invented the prototype of a modern light bulb with a filament made of charred bamboo. |
| 1860 | D. Swan (England) presented a light bulb using carbon paper as conductors. |
| 1874 | A. Lodygin received the right to a lighting device with carbon electrodes. |
| 1875 | Didrikhson began optimizing Lodygin's light bulb. |
| 1875 – 1876 | P. Yablochkov invented the kaolin light bulb. |
| 1878 | D. Swan patented a device with a carbon thread. |
| 1879 | T. Edison received the rights to a lamp with platinum electrodes. |
| 1890 | Lodygin patented a device with a molybdenum and tungsten spiral. |
| 1904 | Sh. Yust, F. Hanaman secured the rights to a light bulb with a tungsten spiral (similar to Lodygin’s light bulb). |
| 1906 | W. Coolidge proposed producing light bulbs with tungsten conductors in the form of a zigzag, double or triple helix. |
As you can see, the history of the development of a filament lamp is long; inventors from different countries participated in its creation.
Gerard Delarue and Heinrich Goebel
In 1840, an astronomer from England, J. Delarue, invented a design that consisted of a vacuum tube and a platinum spiral inside it. His discovery became the world's first light bulb with a filament in the shape of a spiral. The device emitted a bright glow and could be used at almost any temperature. However, its cost was high and its service life was short, so it was not popular.
In 1854, G. Gebel designed the first prototype of an incandescent lamp. This is a device with a vacuum flask and an incandescent element made of charred bamboo. Perfume bottles were used instead of flasks. The vacuum environment was created by adding and pouring out mercury. This device was fragile, short-lived, but more practical than its predecessors.
Russian scientist Alexander Lodygin
In the second half of the 18th century, the famous scientist A. Lodygin invented and patented a filament light source with carbon electrodes. Tungsten or molybdenum spirals were used as a heating element. To extend the life of the light bulb, the inventor proposed pumping out the air from it, then the conductors would oxidize more slowly. These lighting elements immediately began to be used to illuminate streets and buildings in Russia.
This is interesting! The first light bulbs that were sold in America were manufactured according to A. Lodygin’s patent. In addition, the scientist invented coal lighting devices, the bulb of which is filled with nitrogen.
A little later, Lodygin’s light bulb was improved by V. Didrikhson, who installed several sequentially burning filaments in the flask.
120 years ago - October 21, 1879 - American inventor Thomas Alva Edison tested one of the most important inventions of the 19th century - the incandescent light bulb. Its appearance was the result of the work of several scientists at once, but it was Edison who was able to make incandescent lamps widespread.
The "presentation" of Edison's incandescent lamp took place on the eve of 1880. Three thousand people who came to Menlo Park that evening were shocked by what they saw: hundreds of light bulbs glowed with bright light on a wire stretched between the trees.
Great self-taught
The improvement of the light bulb was one of the most striking scientific achievements in Edison's life, but far from the only one. During his life, he managed to patent more than a thousand inventions.
Edison is called America's great "self-taught man." It's hard to believe, but he didn't even spend a year in primary school. The teachers considered him an empty-headed dreamer and did not want to see him in their lessons. Thomas was educated by his mother, a former teacher.
He began conducting his first independent experiments in chemistry at the age of 10 in the basement of his parents' house. When the young chemist needed more complex equipment, he went to work. 12-year-old Thomas sold candy and newspapers on trains, and during breaks he worked in a makeshift laboratory located in a baggage car.
He spent the money he earned from selling newspapers on a manual printing press, on which he printed the first issue of his own newspaper, the Weekly Gerald. The publication talked about events in the country, the life of the railway, as well as prices at nearby retail outlets. Quite soon, Edison increased the newspaper's circulation to 400 copies and earned the first capital for his scientific experiments, writes 3dnews.ru.
At the age of 21, Thomas Edison joined the ranks of telegraph operators at the Western Union office in Boston. Soon he not only became one of the best employees of the organization, but also made a significant contribution to the development of the telegraph, in particular, he improved the stock exchange telegraph. Having received an impressive sum for his invention for those times, Edison devoted himself entirely to scientific work.
He tested some of his inventions on friends. Thus, guests often wondered why the scientist’s gate was so difficult to open. “Is it really possible that a genius like Edison is incapable of constructing something seemingly more perfect,” they said. Edison replied: “The gate is designed ingeniously. It is connected to a pump in the home water supply. Everyone who enters pumps twenty liters of water into the tank.”
Modernizer
In the history of the most important inventions of the 20th century, Edison played mainly the role of a modernizer. He was engaged in improving the inventions that had been created before him - wireless telegraph, radio, power electrical equipment, film equipment, cars and airplanes.
Without Edison's modernizations, the telephone set created by Alexander Bell would have been difficult to operate. It’s the same with the incandescent electric lamp: Edison just improved what his predecessors had achieved before him.
The world first heard about the incandescent lamp thanks to the Englishman De La Rue. Long before Edison, he placed a platinum wire in a glass vessel and passed a current through it. Then there were improved versions of the lamp - from the Belgian scientist Baptiste-Ambroise-Marcellin Jobard, the German Heinrich Gobel, the English Joseph Wilson Swan and the Russian Alexander Lodygin.
The Russian retired officer Lodygin built an incandescent lamp with a thin rod made of retort coal, and Edison completed the invention by placing in the light bulb not a carbon rod, but a hair of charred bamboo fiber.
While working on a new incandescent lamp, the scientist showed miracles of endurance. So, checking the characteristics of the lamp's carbon circuit, he spent about 45 hours in the laboratory without sleep or rest. And to find the right material for the filament, he had to try 6 thousand specimens of various kinds of plants, until Edison settled on Japanese bamboo, writes peoples.ru.
As a result of his work, he achieved significantly better removal of air from the lamp, due to which the heated filament glowed without burning out for many weeks. He also connected together an incandescent lamp, an electric generator, a socket and a plug.
Pretty soon, Thomas Edison's lamps appeared all over the world. At the same time, the times when people slept 10 hours a day are gone.
New century - new light
For almost the entire 20th century, Edison lamps did not have worthy competitor. A breakthrough in household lighting was made only in 1976, when inventor Ed Hammer introduced General Electric to a fundamentally new lamp, which was later called an energy-saving lamp, writes treehugger.com.
Compared to the usual “Ilyich light bulb,” an energy-saving lamp is a complex lighting device that contains a starting device and a glass bulb filled with mercury vapor. There is no incandescent filament in such a lamp, which increases its service life from 6 to 15 times.
Such lamps require mandatory disposal and are somewhat more expensive than conventional incandescent lamps. However, according to experts, all costs are recouped, since energy-saving lamps can reduce energy consumption by up to 80% without losing the usual level of illumination in the room.
The surface area of an energy-saving (fluorescent) lamp is much larger than the surface area of an incandescent filament, which means that the light in the room will be distributed more evenly, which will reduce eye fatigue.
How to choose economical lamps?
In many European countries, the days of incandescent lamps are already numbered. Europeans will completely abandon them in 2012.
In Russia, a corresponding ban may be imposed from 2014. It is expected that the profit from the transition to energy-saving lamps in the residential sector alone will be about 10 billion kilowatt-hours, which is equivalent to the capacity of an average nuclear power plant.
According to the survey results, today more than half of Russians (57%) use energy-saving lamps at home. However, many people still have many questions when purchasing these light sources.
When choosing an energy-saving lamp, it is worth considering four factors: size, power, lamp base and light color.
Size and shape
Energy-saving light bulbs are typically larger in size than regular incandescent light bulbs. Therefore, some of them may not fit into the lamp.
Fluorescent lamps come in two types: U-shaped and spiral-shaped. They differ from each other only in price, since spiral-shaped ones are more expensive to produce, and therefore more expensive in stores.
The power of energy-saving lamps ranges from 3 to 85 W. You should choose a suitable lamp by dividing the power of a conventional incandescent lamp by five, since the luminous efficiency of a fluorescent lamp is five times higher than that of an incandescent lamp.
When going for a fluorescent lamp, you need to know in advance the type of lamp base. Ceiling chandeliers, as a rule, have a base of E 27, and small lamps and floor lamps - E 14. The type of base is indicated on the packaging.
Energy saving lamps have different color temperatures. It is marked on the packaging. 2700K is soft white light, 4200K is daylight, 6400K is cool white light. The lower this indicator, the closer the light is to red, and, therefore, to warm; the higher it is, the closer it is to blue - cold.
It is worth noting that savings on energy-saving lamps directly depend on whether they are used correctly. The fact is that starting devices do not tolerate frequent on-off switching. If the “on-off-on” process occurs more than five times during the day, then the service life of energy-saving lamps decreases.
The material was prepared by the editors of rian.ru based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
There are different answers to this seemingly simple question. The Americans will undoubtedly insist that it was Edison. The British will say that this is their compatriot Swann. The French may remember the “Russian light” of the inventor Yablochkov, who began illuminating the streets and squares of Paris in 1877. Someone will name another Russian inventor - Lodygin. There will probably be other answers. So who is right? Yes, perhaps that's all. History of the light bulb represents a whole chain of discoveries and inventions made by different people at different times.
Before moving on to the chronology of the invention of the light bulb, I would like to note what we mean by the term “light bulb”. First of all, it is a light source, a device in which electrical energy is converted into light. But the conversion methods may be different. In the 19th century, several of these methods were known. Therefore, already then several types appeared electric lamps: arc, incandescent and gas-discharge. An electric lamp is technical system, i.e. a set of individual elements necessary to perform the main useful function- lighting.
The history of the appearance and development of the electric lamp is inseparable from the history of electrical engineering, which begins with the discovery of electric current in the 18th century. Later, in the 19th century, a wave of discoveries related to electricity swept across the world. It was like a chain reaction, with one discovery opening the way for the next. Electrical engineering from the section of physics became an independent science, on the development of which a whole galaxy of scientists and inventors worked: the Frenchman Andre Marie Ampere, the Germans Georg Ohm and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz), Englishmen Michael Faraday and James Maxwell and others.
The amazing 19th century, which laid the foundations for the scientific and technological revolution that so changed the world, began with the invention of a chemical source of current (voltaic column). The Italian scientist A. Volta celebrated the new year of 1800 with this extremely important invention. And already in 1801, professor of the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy Vasily Petrov managed to persuade his superiors to purchase for his physics office the most powerful electric battery at that time, consisting of 4200 pairs of galvanic elements. Conducting experiments with this battery, Petrov in 1802 discovered an electric arc - a bright discharge that occurs between carbon electrode rods brought together at a certain distance. He also suggested using an arc for lighting.
However, many difficulties arose in the practical implementation of this idea. Experiments have shown that the arc burns brightly and steadily only at a certain distance between the electrodes. And while the arc is burning, the carbon electrodes gradually burn out, increasing the arc gap. A regulator mechanism was required to maintain a constant distance between the electrodes.
Inventors proposed different solutions. But they all had the disadvantage that it was impossible to connect several lamps in one circuit. We had to use a separate power source for each lamp. This problem was solved in 1856 by the inventor A.I. Shpakovsky, creating a lighting installation with eleven arc lamps equipped with original regulators. This installation illuminated Red Square in Moscow during the coronation of Alexander II.
In 1869, another Russian inventor V.I. Chikolev applied a differential regulator to an arc lamp and used it in powerful marine searchlights. Similar regulators are still used today in large floodlight installations. Unfortunately, all arc controls were unreliable and expensive.
The Russian electrical engineer Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov played a decisive role in the transition from experiments in electricity to mass electric lighting. Yablochkov began his work in Russia, organizing a workshop in St. Petersburg in 1875 physical devices. In the same year, he came up with the idea to create a simple and reliable arc lamp. However, the financial collapse of the enterprise forced Yablochkov to leave for Paris in 1876, where he continued his work on the arc lamp at the famous watch and precision instrument manufacturer Breguet.
The problem was still the same - a regulator was needed. The idea came unexpectedly, as always. Chance helped. Thinking intensely about this problem, Yablochkov went to have a snack at a small Parisian cafe. The waiter arrived. Yablochkov, continuing to think about his own things, mechanically watched as he put down the dish, put down the spoon, fork, knife... And suddenly... Yablochkov abruptly rose from the table and went to the exit. He hurried to his workshop. The solution has been found! Simple and reliable! It came to him as soon as he glanced at the cutlery lying next to it, parallel to each other.
Yes, this is exactly how the carbon electrodes should be placed in the lamp - not horizontally, as in all previous designs, but parallel (!). Then both will burn out exactly the same, and the distance between them will always be constant. And no complex regulators are needed.
The Parisian waiter had no idea that he had become a co-author of the invention. But who knows, if he had not then placed the knife and spoon so neatly in front of Yablochkov, maybe the lightning guess would not have dawned on the inventor. True, the waiter's "hint" found fertile ground. After all, Yablochkov was looking for his solution even at a cafe table, waiting for his order. By the way, this is an excellent example of the use of associative thinking in solving a complex technical problem. On the other hand, this case is an example of a solution technical problem, when the ideal device (in in this case regulator) is something that actually does not exist, but functions are performed.
Of course, this was just an idea, not complete solution problems - creating an inexpensive and reliable lamp. It took a lot more work to achieve this. First of all, with a parallel arrangement of electrodes, the arc can burn not only at the ends of the electrodes, but along their entire length, and most likely, it will roll down to their base - to the current-carrying terminals. This problem was solved by filling the space between the electrodes with an insulator, which gradually burned out along with the electrodes.
The composition of this insulator still had to be selected, which was done by using clay (kaolin). How to light a lamp? Then, at the top, between the electrodes, a thin carbon jumper was placed, which burned at the moment of switching on, igniting the arc. There was still the problem of uneven combustion of the electrodes, associated with the polarity of the current. Because the “+” electrode burned out faster; initially it had to be made thicker. Another ingenious solution to this problem was the use of alternating current.
The design of the arc lamp turned out to be simple: two carbon rods separated by an insulating layer of kaolin and mounted on a simple stand resembling a candlestick. The electrodes burned evenly, and the lamp gave a bright light, and for quite a long time. This “electric candle” was easy to make and inexpensive.
In 1876, the Russian inventor presented his invention at the London Exhibition. A year later, the enterprising Frenchman Deneyrouz achieved the establishment of the joint-stock company “Society for the Study of Electric Lighting Using Yablochkov’s Methods.” Yablochkov's lamps appeared in the most visited places in Paris, on the street - Avenue de l'Opéra and on the Place de l'Opéra, as well as in the Louvre store; dim gas and liquid lighting were replaced by matte balls that glowed with white, soft light. The triumphant procession of "La lumiere russe" (Russian light) around the world. In two years, Yablochkov’s candle conquered the entire Old World, spreading in the East to the palaces of the Persian Shah and the King of Cambodia.
Rice. 1. Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov and his candle.
In 1876-77, several French patents were received, both for the design of the light bulb itself and for their power supply systems. Production was put on an industrial basis. A small factory in Paris produced more than 8,000 candles per day and several dozen electrical generators per month. However, soon all this prosperity came to an end. The Yablochkov candle began to be gradually replaced by a cheaper and more durable incandescent lamp.
It is generally accepted that the inventor of the incandescent lamp is the famous American inventor Thomas Alva Edison. On December 21, 1879, an article appeared in the New York Herald newspaper about T.A. Edison's new invention - "Edison's light", an incandescent lamp with a carbon filament. A few days later, on January 1, 1880, 3 thousand people attended a demonstration of electric lighting for houses and streets in Menlo Park (USA), and on January 27 of the same year he received US Patent No. 223898 "Electric-Lamp" (see Fig. 2.) All this is true. But in reality, the story with this patent and with the incandescent lamp is much more complex and interesting.
Rice. 2. Thomas A. Edison's patent for the electric lamp
The first experiments with heating conductors with electric current were carried out at the beginning of the 19th century by the English scientist Humphry Davy. One of the first attempts to apply the incandescence of conductors with current, specifically for the purpose of lighting, was carried out in 1844 by the engineer de Moleyne, who glowed a platinum wire placed inside a glass ball. These experiments did not bring the desired results, because... the platinum wire melted too quickly.
In 1845, in London, King replaced platinum with sticks of coal and received a patent “The use of incandescent metal and carbon conductors for lighting.”
In 1954, 25 years before Edison, the German watchmaker Heinrich Goebel introduced in New York the first practical incandescent carbon filament lamps with a burning life of about 200 hours. As a thread, he used charred bamboo thread 0.2 mm thick, placed in a vacuum. Instead of a flask, for reasons of economy, Goebel first used cologne bottles, and later glass tubes. He created a vacuum in a glass flask by filling and pouring out mercury, that is, using the method used in the manufacture of barometers.
Goebel used the created lamps to illuminate his watch shop. To improve his financial situation, he drove around New York in a wheelchair and invited everyone to look at the stars through a telescope. The stroller, at the same time, was decorated with his light bulbs. Thus, Goebel became the first person to use light for advertising purposes. Due to the lack of money and connections, the German emigrant was unable to obtain a patent for his lamp with a carbon filament and his invention was quickly forgotten.
Since 1872, Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin began experiments on electric lighting in St. Petersburg. In his first lamps, a thin stick of coal was sandwiched between massive copper rods located in a hermetically sealed glass globe. Despite the imperfection of the lamp, in the same year the banker Kozlov, in partnership with Lodygin, founded a company to exploit this invention. The Academy of Sciences awarded Lodygin the Lomonosov Prize of 1000 rubles.
Incandescent lamps with a carbon rod built by Lodygin in 1874 were used to illuminate the St. Petersburg Admiralty. In 1875, Kon became the head of the partnership, releasing under his own name an improved Lodygin lamp, designed by V.F. Didrikhson. In this lamp, the embers were placed in a vacuum, and the burnt out ember was automatically replaced with another. Three such lamps were used to illuminate Florent's linen store in St. Petersburg for two months in 1875, and also, at the suggestion of P. Struve, the caissons were illuminated under water during the construction of the Alexander Bridge across the Neva.
In 1875, Didrichson began making wood coals by charring wooden cylinders without air in graphite crucibles filled with coal powder. In 1876, after the death of Cohn, the partnership dissolved. Further improvement of the lamp was made by N.P. Bulygin in 1876. His lamp glowed at the end of a long coal, which moved out automatically as its end burned. The design of the lamps turned out to be difficult and low-tech to manufacture, and therefore not cheap, although it was constantly being improved.
At the end of the 70s of the same century, ships were built for Russia at one of the North American shipyards, and when the time came to receive them, Lieutenant of the Russian Navy A.N. Khotinsky went there. He took with him several Lodygin incandescent lamps. The invention was already patented in France, Russia, Belgium, Austria and Great Britain. He showed Russian lamps to an inventor named Thomas Edison, who was also working on the problem of electric lighting at the time.
Now it is difficult to establish how much the described circumstance influenced Edison’s invention. However, in the end, thanks to his work, a quantum leap was made in the improvement of the incandescent lamp. Edison did not make any revolutionary changes to Lodygin's light bulb. His lamp was a glass flask with a carbon filament, from which the air was pumped out, although much more carefully than Lodygin's. But Edison's merit, first of all, is that he invented and created a supersystem for this lamp and put its production on stream, which led to a significant reduction in cost. He invented a screw base and a socket for a lamp, invented fuses, switches, and the first energy meter. It was with Edison's light bulb that electric lighting became truly widespread, coming into the homes of ordinary people.
Edison's approach to solving the problem of finding material for an incandescent filament deserves special attention. He simply went through all the substances and materials available to him (trial and error). Edison tried 6,000 substances containing carbon, from ordinary sewing threads coated with carbon to food and resin. The best was bamboo, from which the case of the Japanese palm fan was made. This titanic work took about two years.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in England, at about the same time as Lodygin and Edison, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was working on the electric light bulb. He used a charred cotton thread as a filament element and also pumped air out of the flask. Swann received a British patent for his device in 1878, about a year before Edison. Beginning in 1879, he began installing electric lamps in English homes. Having organized The Swan Electric Light Company in 1881, he began commercial production of lamps. Swan later teamed up with Edison to commercially exploit the single trademark "Edi-Swan".
From the above it follows that the incandescent electric lamp had several inventors at a very early stage. Almost all of them had patents. As for the most famous of them, the American Edison patent, it was declared invalid by the court before the expiration of the protective rights. The court recognized that the incandescent lamp was invented by Heinrich Hebel several decades before Edison.
In 1890, Lodygin patented in the USA a lamp with a metal filament made of refractory metals - octium, iridium, rhodium, molybdenum and tungsten. Lodygin's lamps with molybdenum filaments were exhibited at the Paris exhibition in 1900 and were such a great success that in 1906 the American company General Electric bought this patent from him. The most interesting thing is that the General Electric company was organized by Thomas Edison himself. This was the end of the correspondence dispute between the great inventors.
However, the improvement of the incandescent lamp did not end there. Since 1909, incandescent lamps with a zigzag tungsten filament began to be used, and in 1912-13 lamps filled with nitrogen and inert gases (Ar, Kr) appeared. And finally, the last improvement of the beginning of the 20th century - the tungsten filament began to be produced, first, in the form of a spiral, and then in the form of a bispiral (a spiral wound from a spiral) and a trispiral. The electric incandescent lamp has finally acquired the appearance we are used to seeing it.
So who invented the light bulb? The names have already been named: Petrov, Shpakovsky, Chikolev, Yablochkov, Edison, Devi, King, Gebel, Lodygin, Svan. It would seem enough. But if you take the “Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron”, published at the beginning of the 20th century, then you can read there: Incandescent light bulbs are a glass cap from which air has been pumped out, and where a carbon or metal filament is placed, heated by an electric current. Carbon filament is produced by charring bamboo fibers (Edison light bulbs), silk, and cotton paper (Swan light bulbs). Since the late 1890s. new incandescent light bulbs appeared: instead of a carbon filament, a rod pressed from fire-resistant substances is incandescent: oxides of magnesium, thorium, zirconium and yttrium (Nernst light bulb) or a filament made of metal osmium (Auer light bulbs) and tantalum (Bolton and Feuerlein light bulbs).
As you can see, new names have appeared - Nernst, Auer, Bolton, Feyerlein. If desired, by conducting a more in-depth search, this list can be further expanded.
It is probably pointless to look for a definite answer to the question “Who invented the light bulb.” Many inventors contributed their intelligence, knowledge, work and talent to this. And this applies only to the types of light bulbs that were developed at the initial stage of the introduction of electric lighting: arc and incandescent.
Even at the very beginning of the development of incandescent lamps, it was noticed that they have low efficiency, i.e. a very small percentage of the energy from the electrical current is converted into light energy. Therefore, the search for other methods of converting electrical energy into light continued, and attempts were made to use them in new types of electric light sources. Such light sources were gas-discharge lamps - devices in which electrical energy is converted into optical radiation when an electric current passes through gases and other substances (for example, mercury).
The first experiments with gas-discharge lamps began almost simultaneously with incandescent lamps. In 1860, the first mercury discharge lamps appeared in England. However, until the beginning of the 20th century, all these experiments were few in number and remained only experiments, without real practical application.
In the first decade of the 20th century, during the period of mass introduction of electric lighting using incandescent lamps, work on gas-discharge lamps intensified, which led to a number of inventions and discoveries. In 1901, Peter Cooper Hewitt invents the low-pressure mercury lamp. In 1906, a high-pressure mercury lamp was invented. 1910 - discovery of the halogen cycle. The neon lamp was developed by French physicist Georges Claude in 1911 and quickly found use for advertising purposes.
In the 20s - 40s, work on gas-discharge lamps continued in many countries, which led to the improvement of already known types of lamps and the discovery of new ones. The following were developed: low pressure sodium lamp, fluorescent lamp, xenon lamp and others. Mass use began in the 40s fluorescent lamps for lighting.
Later, other types of electric lamps were invented: high-pressure sodium; halogen; compact fluorescent; LED light sources and others. Now in the world the total number of types of light sources is about 2000.
Despite such a huge number of types of electric lamps, inventive thought does not stand still. Already known light sources continue to be improved. An example of such improvement is the creation in 1983 of compact fluorescent lamps, which became the size of an ordinary incandescent lamp. To turn them on, no special starting equipment is required; they are connected to a standard socket for incandescent lamps, and most importantly, with the same amount of light produced, these lamps consume several times less electricity and last several times longer. In recent years, such energy-saving light bulbs are increasingly used, despite their still higher cost than traditional incandescent lamps.
However, the inventive thought does not stop there. Almost simultaneously, two American companies Technical Consumer Products (TCP) and O·ZONELite launched fluorescent energy-saving light bulbs with new and unexpected properties. According to these manufacturers, their Fresh2 and O·ZONELite bulbs (both names are registered trademarks) in addition to illuminating the room also eliminate unpleasant odors, purify the air, and kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. Isn't it a miracle?
The secret is that the light bulbs are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2), which, when irradiated with fluorescent light, causes a photocatalytic reaction. During this reaction, negatively charged particles called electrons are released, leaving positively charged “holes” in their place. Due to the appearance of a combination of pluses and minuses on the surface of the light bulb, water molecules contained in the air are converted into very strong oxidizing agents - hydroxide radicals (HO), which is why these light bulbs have such unusual and remarkable properties.
Rice. 3. Gas-discharge fluorescent energy-saving lamps Fresh2 and O.ZONELite
As can be seen from Figure 3, these light bulbs are even very similar in appearance, and their characteristics are approximately the same. The spiral shape of both lamps is noteworthy. Their creators did this to increase light output, just like their predecessors - the creators of incandescent lamps. Indeed, history moves in a spiral.
We can conclude that gas-discharge lamps have been gaining increasing popularity in recent years even in household lighting, displacing incandescent lamps. They consume less energy, are just as easy to use and can have a number of other wonderful and useful properties. The higher price, which still limits the spread of these lamps, is compensated by 8-10 times the service life and 3-5 times the efficiency. And with more mass production, the price will gradually decrease. And if we take into account the ever-increasing energy and environmental problems that are causing an increase in the cost of electricity and forcing the introduction of stringent cost-saving measures, it becomes clear that the prospects for compact fluorescent lamps are the brightest. And in the coming years they have practically no alternative.
But nothing stands still. Although the last 100 years in the development of lighting technology have passed in a victorious procession gas discharge lamps, other types of light sources appeared. The most promising direction now seems to be related to the use of LED light sources, because they have even greater efficiency than gas-discharge lamps.
The first industrial LEDs appeared back in the 60s of the 20th century. However, their low power did not allow them to be used for lighting. They have found application as indicators in various electronic devices, in particular, in microcalculators, watches and other household and scientific instruments.
This would have continued if humanity had not faced the problem of energy conservation. It turned out that today, LEDs have the highest percentage of converting electrical energy into light energy. It was impossible not to try to use LEDs as light sources. They found, initially, application in hand-held electric flashlights. In addition, these were low-power flashlights that did not shine very much, but were miniature, which made it possible to use them even as keychains.
Of course, LED bulbs still have many problems. Many of them are being successfully resolved, especially since big capital is now investing a lot of money in this direction. And success is already evident - energy-saving LED lamps have already appeared on sale.
Literature
* 1. N.A. Kaptsov, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov 1894-1944. OGIZ. State publishing house of technical and theoretical literature. Moscow, Leningrad, 1944.
* 2. V. Malov, How a Parisian waiter helped a Russian inventor. / Sputnik UT - popular science digest / No. 4, 2001 / http://jtdigest.narod.ru/dig4_01/offic.htm
* 3. Ya.I. Khurgin, Yes, no, maybe... - Moscow,: Science, 1977, p.208
* 4. History of lighting technology. / 2003-2005 CJSC NPK Daleks / http://www.daleks.ru
* 5. Fresh2 compact fluorescent light bulbs remove odor while emitting energy efficient light./ http://www.fresh2.com/
* 6. The Bright Future of Indoor Air Quality! / http://www.ozonelite.com/index.html
December 20, 1879 American scientist Thomas Edison patented the electric light bulb. It is he who is considered to be the inventor of this device in the USA, although in fact Edison only improved existing developments.
AiF.ru decided to follow how the best minds of humanity created the incandescent lamp.
Why can't a light bulb have just one inventor?
The fact is that in the 19th century, scientists from different countries of the world experimented with electricity, and they all knew very well that some materials begin to glow when exposed to current. The task of these researchers was to create a lighting device that could be used in everyday life. He had to work for at least a few hours. Scientists had big problems with this. Materials through which electricity was passed almost immediately either melted or burst into flames. Realizing that combustion occurs only in an oxygen environment, the inventors tried to place the burner in a 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 Zhobar designed a carbon incandescent lamp that burned for about half an hour.
In the 50-60s of the 19th 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 only for a few hours.
First commercial application
The creation of the first incandescent lamps suitable for commercial use is associated with the names Alexander Lodygin, Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. It was they who, independently of each other, achieved a stable, bright and long-lasting glow of carbon incandescent lamps in vacuum flasks and patented their inventions in 1870: in 1874 Lodygin received a Russian patent, in 1878 Swan received a British patent, and a year later he patented his invention in the USA and Edison.
Edison created the first company to produce incandescent lamps: using carbonized bamboo fiber, he and a team of scientists managed to achieve a lamp glow of more than 1,200 hours - this was a technological breakthrough of that time. In the early 1880s, Edison created 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 rechargeable 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 in the United States with a tungsten spiral was produced by General Electric precisely according to Lodygin’s patent, which was sold to it in 1906.
In 1910 William David Coolidge, who worked at General Electric, invented an industrial method for producing tungsten filament, and another General Electric scientist Irving Langmuir used inert gas to fill lamp bulbs, which significantly increased their operating time and increased light output. These are the incandescent lamps we use today.
The history of incandescent lamps dates back to the nineteenth century. Let's consider the main points associated with this unique invention of mankind.
Peculiarities
An incandescent light bulb is an object that is familiar to many people. Currently, it is difficult to imagine the life of mankind without the use of artificial and electric light. At the same time, rarely does anyone think about what the first lamp looked like and in what historical period it was created.
First, let's look at the design of an incandescent lamp. This electric light source is a conductor with a high melting point, which is located in a bulb. The air has been previously pumped out of it; instead, the flask is filled with an inert gas. Passing through the lamp, the electric current emits a stream of light.
The essence of operation
What is the working principle of an incandescent lamp? It lies in the fact that when electric current flows through the filament body, the element heats up, and the tungsten filament itself heats up. It is she who emits thermal and electromagnetic radiation according to Planck’s law. To create a full-fledged glow, it is necessary to heat the tungsten filament to several hundred degrees. As the temperature decreases, the spectrum becomes red.
The first incandescent lamps had many disadvantages. For example, it was difficult to regulate the temperature, as a result of which the lamps quickly failed.
Technical features
What is the design of a modern incandescent lamp? Since she became the first she has enough simple design. The main elements of the lamp are:
- filament body;
- flask;
- current inputs.
Currently, various modifications have been developed; a fuse, which is a link, has been introduced into the lamp. An iron-nickel alloy is used to produce this part. The link is welded into the current input leg in order to prevent the glass bulb from being destroyed when the tungsten filament is heated.
Considering the main advantages and disadvantages of incandescent lamps, we note that since their introduction, lamps have been significantly modernized. For example, thanks to the use of a fuse, the likelihood of rapid destruction of the lamp was reduced.
The main disadvantage of such lighting elements is their high energy consumption. That is why they are now used much less frequently.
How did artificial light sources appear?
The history of incandescent lamps is associated with many inventors. Before the time when the Russian physicist Alexander Lodygin began working on its creation, the first models of incandescent lamps had already been developed. In 1809, the English inventor Delarue developed a model that was equipped with a platinum spiral. The history of incandescent lamps is also connected with the inventor Heinrich Hebel. In the example created by the German, a charred bamboo thread was placed in a vessel from which the air was first pumped out. Goebel has been modernizing his incandescent lamp model for fifteen years. He managed to get a working version of an incandescent light bulb. Lodygin achieved high-quality glow from a carbon rod placed in a glass vessel from which air had been removed.
Practical model option
The first incandescent lamps that could be produced in large quantities appeared in England at the end of the nineteenth century. Joseph Wilson Swan even managed to obtain a patent for his own development.
Speaking about those who invented the incandescent lamp, it is also necessary to dwell on the experiments conducted by Thomas Edison.
He tried to use various materials as filaments. It was this scientist who proposed a platinum filament as a filament.
This invention of the incandescent lamp marked a new stage in the field of electricity. Initially, Edison's lamps operated only for forty hours, but despite this, they quickly replaced gas lighting.
During the period when Edison was engaged in his research, in Russia Alexander Lodygin managed to create several different types of lamps in which refractory metals played the role of filaments.
The history of incandescent lamps indicates that it was the Russian inventor who first began to use refractory metals in the form of an incandescent body.
In addition to tungsten, Lodygin also conducted experiments with molybdenum, twisting it in the form of a spiral.
Specifics of operation of the Lodygin lamp
Modern analogues are characterized by excellent luminous flux, as well as high-quality color rendition. Their coefficient useful action is 15% at highest value glow temperatures. Such light sources consume a significant amount of electrical energy for their operation, so their operation lasts no more than 1000 hours. This is more than compensated by the low cost of the lamps, therefore, despite the variety of artificial lighting sources presented on the modern market, they are still considered popular and in demand among buyers.
Interesting facts from the history of the incandescent lamp
At the end of the nineteenth century, Didrichson managed to make significant changes to the model proposed by the Russian inventor Lodygin. He completely pumped out the air from it and used several hairs in the lamp at once.
This improvement made it possible to use the lamp even if one of the hairs burned out.
English engineer Joseph Wilson Swan owns a patent confirming his creation of a carbon fiber lamp.
The fiber was located in a rarefied oxygen atmosphere, resulting in brighter and more uniform light.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Edison, in addition to the lamp itself, invented a rotary household switch.
Large-scale appearance of lamps on the market
Since the end of the nineteenth century, lamps began to appear in which oxides of yttrium, zirconium, thorium, and magnesium were used as filaments.
At the beginning of the last century, Hungarian researchers Sandor Just and Franjo Hanaman received a patent for the use of tungsten filament in incandescent lamps. It was in this country that the first copies of such lamps were manufactured and entered the large-scale market.
In the United States, during the same time period, plants were built and launched to produce titanium, tungsten, and chromium through electrochemical reduction.
The high cost of tungsten has made adjustments to the speed of introduction of incandescent lamps into everyday life.
In 1910 Coolidge developed new technology production of thin tungsten filaments, which helped reduce the cost of production of artificial incandescent lamps.
The problem of its rapid evaporation was solved by the American scientist Irving Langmuir. It was he who introduced into industrial production the filling of glass flasks with inert gas, which increased the life of the lamp and made them cheaper.
Efficiency
Almost all the energy that is received by the lamp gradually turns into thermal radiation. The efficiency reaches 15 percent at a temperature of 15 percent.
As the temperature increases, the efficiency increases, but this causes a significant reduction in the operating life of the lamp.
At 2700 K, the period of full use of an artificial light source is 1000 hours, and at 3400 K - several hours.
In order to increase the durability of an incandescent lamp, developers propose reducing the supply voltage. Of course, in this case the efficiency will also decrease by about 4-5 times. Engineers use this effect in cases where reliable lighting of minimal brightness is required. For example, this is relevant for evening and night lighting of construction sites and staircases.
To do this, connect the alternating current of the lamp with a diode in series, which guarantees the supply of current to the lamp for half of the entire period of current supply.
Considering that the price of a conventional incandescent lamp is significantly less than its average service life, the purchase of such lighting sources can be considered a fairly profitable undertaking.
Conclusion
The history of the appearance of the model of electric lamp that we are accustomed to is associated with the names of many Russian and foreign scientists and inventors. Over the course of two centuries, this artificial lighting source has been subject to transformations and modernization, the purpose of which was to increase the operational life of the device and reduce its cost.
The greatest wear on the filament is observed in the case of sudden voltage supply to the lamp. To solve this problem, inventors began to equip lamps with a variety of devices that ensure their smooth starting.
When cold, tungsten filament has a resistivity that is only twice that of aluminum. To avoid power peaks, designers use thermistors whose resistance drops as the temperature rises.
Low-voltage lamps with equal power have a much higher service life and light output, since they have a larger cross-section of the incandescent body. In luminaires designed for multiple lamps, series connection of several lamps of lower voltage is effective. For example, instead of six 60 W lamps connected in parallel, you can use only three.
Of course, these days there are various models electric lamps, which have much more efficient characteristics than conventional light bulbs invented during the time of Lodygin and Edison.