An Invention that Changed the Mankind
We all are a part of an electrified world. Light bulb, particularly, profoundly revolutionized human existence. It not just helped in illuminating nights but also made human existence hospitable for an array of human activities. History of electric light, which adds to our daily convenience, bears testimony of many scientists, physicist’s efforts. But have we ever thought about how that the bulb developed up to today by time to time. Most of people know that it’s invented by Thomas Edison. But we have to know that they have done hundreds of experiments & try to achieve this objective. As we know Edison invented it, but there were few people who have took a step forward in this field before him. James Lindsay, Frederick Moleyns, Heinrich Göbel, Humphrey Davy and Warren Rue and are few of them.
It was as early as 1809 when the foundation of the concept of light bulb was formulated. The history of light bulb is listed below in a brief yet concrete manner to truly explain the evolution of a mere idea to a common light bulb being use today.
In 1809 and English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy made the invention of the electric luminosity. It was a simple experiment, which constituted a battery connected by the aid of two wires with a charcoal strip at the wire ends. This in history was the first glowing lamp. This method was overshadowed in 1820 when a scientist by the name of Warren De la made a lamp design making use of platinum coil in an evacuated tube and passing electrical energy through it. In 1835 James Bowman Lindsay presented a prototype light bulb, which was perhaps lost in the invention of the first electrical incandescent arc lamp, which made use of charcoal filament. The credit of this evolution goes to Edward Shepard who made the invention in 1850.
1854 was the time when perhaps the true form of the light bulb was introduce in the world by a German watchmakers Henricg Globel. By using his innovative imagination he made use of bamboo strand inside a flute bulb. This concept was further modified in 1875 when Herman Sprengel originated mercury vacuum pump for a convenient light tuber. The time span from 1878 to 1880 saw many remarkable discoveries such as the use of long lasting electric light bulb in 1878 by Sir Joseph Wilson while at the same time Edison was working on constant betterment of light bulb and came up with a bamboo derived filament in 1880 which lasted for an incredible 1200 hours.
A remarkable evolution took place in early 1906 when the general electrical company became the first company to officially patent a technique of making tungsten strand for light bulbs. The history of light bulb was on a roll their own many companies came in and scientist continues to embark on new techniques for constant improvements. In 1921 the first frosted light bulbs were introduced. In 1991 Philips invented light bulb lasting more than 60,000 hours.
Now bulbs have come a long way and scientists are working to offer power saving, efficient and environment savvy bulbs. CFLS and LED bulbs are replacing the incandescent bulbs. Though a little costlier, they are environment friendly and power saving. Incandescent bulbs can be reasonably characterized just as heater that produces lights. As the typical incandescent offers only 3-5% light of the total energy it takes up. Remaining energy is wasted as heat. CFLs on the other side employ 75% lesser energy in the comparison and lasts 10 times longer. Useful long life and efficiency is adding to the popularity of CFLs.
LED is also used by a lot of people and is more energy efficient than CFLs too. Standard LED offers around 35 lumens of light per watt as compared to around 12 lumen offered by an incandescent bulb. LED bulbs are getting developed and soon they would offer 131 lumens every watt. LEDs are used at a lot of places. These are used in trail lights of trucks and cars, watch dials, digital clocks, traffic signals, Christmas lights. Long life and durability has made it popular these days. It has become an ideal lighting for homes. One can find a range of LED bulbs in the market.
From simple light bulbs to CFLs and LEDs, bulbs have covered a long way. Hardly did we know that small thing like bulb can literally illuminate our lives.
