How invented the light bulb

Thomas Edison and the “first” light bulb

In 1878, Thomas Edison began serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp and on October 14, 1878, Edison filed his first patent application for “Improvement In Electric Lights”.

One of the most important steps prior to Edison was the work of the great British scientist Sir Humphrey Davy. In 1802, he was able to produce the world’s first true artificial electric light. Using his recently invented electric battery, Davy connected a set of wires to a piece of carbon to it.

By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting.

Long before Thomas Edison patented — first in 1879 and then a year later in 1880 — and began commercializing his incandescent light bulb, British inventors were demonstrating that electric light was possible with the arc lamp.

The light bulb was invented for the purpose of giving off light. It was designed to produce a more consistent, longer-lasting, higher quality light…

Let there be Light!

Three factors in combination are generally recognized as contributing to Edison’s success: A durable incandescent material. Elimination of air from the bulb-a better vacuum. A filament material of high resistance.

But by then more than a million Americans were working to manufacture, connect, sell and power the electric light, and a light bulb cost only 17 cents. The triumph of electricity was a matter of time. Bruce Ramsey is a Seattle Times editorial writer.

The Centennial Light is the world’s longest-lasting light bulb, burning since 1901, and almost never switched off. It is at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California, and maintained by the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department.