Who invented the incandescent light bulb?

[boyntonstu]

Who invented the incandescent light bulb?

A relatively easy question one would imagine.

Think and do a little research before responding.

[Careyp74]

Well, not sure what you are defining as an incadescent light bulb, so here is the history of the topic from inventors.about.com

1809 - Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip betwween the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp.
1820 - Warren De la Rue enclosed a platinum coil in an evacuated tube and passed an electric current through it. His lamp design was worked but the cost of the precious metal platinum made this an impossible invention for wide-spread use.
1835 - James Bowman Lindsaydemonstrated constant electric lighting system using a prototype lightbulb.
1850 - Edward Shepard invented an electrical incandescent arc lamp using a charcoal filament. Joseph Wilson Swan started working with carbonized paper filaments the same year.
1854 - Henricg Globel, a German watchmaker, invented the first true lightbulb. He used a carbonized bamboo filament placed inside a glass bulb.
1875 - Herman Sprengel invented the mercury vacuum pump making it possible to develop a practical electric light bulb. Making a really good vacuum inside the bulb possible.
1875 - Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans patented a lightbulb.
1878 - Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914), an English physicist, was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb (13.5 hours). Swan used a carbon fiber filament derived from cotton.
1879 - Thomas Alva Edison invented a carbon filament that burned for forty hours. Edison placed his filament in an oxygenless bulb. (Edison evolved his designs for the lightbulb based on the 1875 patent he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.)
1880 - Edison continued to improved his lightbulb until it could last for over 1200 hours using a bamboo-derived filament.
1903 - Willis Whitnew invented a filament that would not make the inside of a lightbulb turn dark. It was a metal-coated carbon filament (a predecessor to the tungsten filament).
1906 - The General Electric Company were the first to patent a method of making tungsten filaments for use in incandesent lightbulbs. The filaments were costly.
1910 - William David Coolidge (1873-1975) invented an improved method of makingtungsten filaments. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types of filaments and Coolidge made the costs practical.
1925 - The first frosted lightbulbs were produced.
1991 - Philips invented a lightbulb that lasts 60,000 hours. The bulb uses magnetic induction.

[Fitter]

I did, yesterday. After lunch.

[technoextreme]

Well, not sure what you are defining as an incadescent light bulb, so here is the history of the topic from inventors.about.com

1809 - Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip betwween the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp.
1820 - Warren De la Rue enclosed a platinum coil in an evacuated tube and passed an electric current through it. His lamp design was worked but the cost of the precious metal platinum made this an impossible invention for wide-spread use.
1835 - James Bowman Lindsaydemonstrated constant electric lighting system using a prototype lightbulb.
1850 - Edward Shepard invented an electrical incandescent arc lamp using a charcoal filament. Joseph Wilson Swan started working with carbonized paper filaments the same year.
1854 - Henricg Globel, a German watchmaker, invented the first true lightbulb. He used a carbonized bamboo filament placed inside a glass bulb.
1875 - Herman Sprengel invented the mercury vacuum pump making it possible to develop a practical electric light bulb. Making a really good vacuum inside the bulb possible.
1875 - Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans patented a lightbulb.
1878 - Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914), an English physicist, was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb (13.5 hours). Swan used a carbon fiber filament derived from cotton.
1879 - Thomas Alva Edison invented a carbon filament that burned for forty hours. Edison placed his filament in an oxygenless bulb. (Edison evolved his designs for the lightbulb based on the 1875 patent he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.)
1880 - Edison continued to improved his lightbulb until it could last for over 1200 hours using a bamboo-derived filament.
1903 - Willis Whitnew invented a filament that would not make the inside of a lightbulb turn dark. It was a metal-coated carbon filament (a predecessor to the tungsten filament).
1906 - The General Electric Company were the first to patent a method of making tungsten filaments for use in incandesent lightbulbs. The filaments were costly.
1910 - William David Coolidge (1873-1975) invented an improved method of makingtungsten filaments. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types of filaments and Coolidge made the costs practical.
1925 - The first frosted lightbulbs were produced.
1991 - Philips invented a lightbulb that lasts 60,000 hours. The bulb uses magnetic induction.
Your missing some really important people.

[jasonpatterson]

Why is this in education and not down in Puzzles with the other trivia?

[Pure Argent]

Me.

[Careyp74]

Your missing some really important people.

Who is IT missing? (I didn't come up with the list)

Volta? The science experiment in 1800 was not used to demonstrate light, but heat, so I don't think that would be included.

[fuelair]

Your missing some really important people.

My suspicion, not certain knowledge, based on the initial presentation is that some people were conspiracied/fed to the fishes and stu wants to see if we know about them. Especially since Edison may well have been indirectly involved in one dissappearance re: motion picture camera.

[Simon39759]

The ancient Egyptians, according to Von Daniken...

[Careyp74]

My suspicion, not certain knowledge, based on the initial presentation is that some people were conspiracied/fed to the fishes and stu wants to see if we know about them. Especially since Edison may well have been indirectly involved in one dissappearance re: motion picture camera.

Well if that is the case we wouldn't know the answer then, if the conspirators were any good at their jobs.

[boyntonstu]

Well, not sure what you are defining as an incadescent light bulb, so here is the history of the topic from inventors.about.com

1809 - Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip betwween the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp.
1820 - Warren De la Rue enclosed a platinum coil in an evacuated tube and passed an electric current through it. His lamp design was worked but the cost of the precious metal platinum made this an impossible invention for wide-spread use.
1835 - James Bowman Lindsaydemonstrated constant electric lighting system using a prototype lightbulb.
1850 - Edward Shepard invented an electrical incandescent arc lamp using a charcoal filament. Joseph Wilson Swan started working with carbonized paper filaments the same year.
1854 - Henricg Globel, a German watchmaker, invented the first true lightbulb. He used a carbonized bamboo filament placed inside a glass bulb.
1875 - Herman Sprengel invented the mercury vacuum pump making it possible to develop a practical electric light bulb. Making a really good vacuum inside the bulb possible.
1875 - Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans patented a lightbulb.
1878 - Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914), an English physicist, was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb (13.5 hours). Swan used a carbon fiber filament derived from cotton.
1879 - Thomas Alva Edison invented a carbon filament that burned for forty hours. Edison placed his filament in an oxygenless bulb. (Edison evolved his designs for the lightbulb based on the 1875 patent he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.)
1880 - Edison continued to improved his lightbulb until it could last for over 1200 hours using a bamboo-derived filament.
1903 - Willis Whitnew invented a filament that would not make the inside of a lightbulb turn dark. It was a metal-coated carbon filament (a predecessor to the tungsten filament).
1906 - The General Electric Company were the first to patent a method of making tungsten filaments for use in incandesent lightbulbs. The filaments were costly.
1910 - William David Coolidge (1873-1975) invented an improved method of makingtungsten filaments. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types of filaments and Coolidge made the costs practical.
1925 - The first frosted lightbulbs were produced.
1991 - Philips invented a lightbulb that lasts 60,000 hours. The bulb uses magnetic induction.

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was a British physicist and chemist, most famous for the invention of the incandescent light bulb for which he received the first patent in 1878. His house was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb.

Edison collaboration

In America, Edison had been working on copies of the original Swan patent, trying to make them more efficient. Though Swan had beaten him to this goal, Edison obtained patents in America for a fairly direct copy of the Swan light, and started an advertising campaign which claimed that he was the real inventor.[citation needed] Swan, who was less interested in making money from the invention, agreed that Edison could sell the lights in America while he retained the rights in Britain.[citation needed]

While searching for a better filament for his light bulb, Swan inadvertently made another advance. In 1881, Swan developed and patented a process for squeezing nitro-cellulose through holes to form conducting fibres. His newly established Swan Electric Company, which by merger was to become the Edison and Swan United Company, used the cellulose filaments, that Swan had invented, in their bulbs.[4]
Ediswan

In 1883 the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company was established. Known commonly as "Ediswan" the company sold lamps made with a cellulose filament that Swan had invented in 1881. Variations of the cellulose filament became an industry standard, except with the Edison Company. Edison continued using bamboo filaments until the 1892 merger that created General Electric, and that company then shifted to cellulose.


From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Joseph_Wilson_Swan


BTW Is Wikipedia Copyrighted?

[Careyp74]

BTW Is Wikipedia Copyrighted?

Generally, content on the internet is automatically copywritten. If it is an original work, and not posted in a use group by the original author, this can be assumed true. That doesn't mean you can't reprint the information. You have to look in the policy to know. In the case of Wikipedia:
Permission to reproduce and modify text on Wikipedia has already been granted to anyone anywhere by the authors of individual articles as long as such reproduction and modification complies with licensing terms (see below and Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks for specific terms). Images may or may not permit reuse and modification; the conditions for reproduction of each image should be individually checked. The only exceptions are those cases in which editors have violated Wikipedia policy by uploading copyrighted material without authorization, or with copyright licensing terms which are incompatible with those Wikipedia authors have applied to the rest of Wikipedia content. While such material is present on the Wikipedia (before it is detected and removed), it will be a copyright violation to copy it. For permission to use it, one must contact the owner of the copyright of the text or illustration in question; often, but not always, this will be the original author.

[jimtron]

Wikipedia's text is protected not by copyright, but by a Creative Commons license. From the bottom of this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page):

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License); additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use) for details.

[Careyp74]

Wikipedia's text is protected not by copyright, but by a Creative Commons license. From the bottom of this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page):

Ah, yes, it is USAGE ALLOWED by license. Not anything to do with the copywrite.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was a British physicist and chemist, most famous for the invention of the incandescent light bulb for which he received the first patent in 1878. His house was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb.

I think Caryp's answer is better. You didn't ask who had the first patent or who first lit his house with an incandescent lightbulb. Some of the stuff on the list he cited pre-dates Swan.

It sounds to me like the best answer is Humphry Davy.

ETA: Or maybe Globel.

[quarky]

The lightbulb has become an iconic symbol for an "A ha!" moment.

I wonder what they used before its invention?

[The Fallen Serpent]

Newton's apple? Eureka?

BTW, first post!

[fuelair]

Newton's apple? Eureka?

BTW, first post!

Eureka for sure - and, welcome in!!:)

[JoeTheJuggler]

I have an image of ancient Greek cartoons where the mouse gets an idea and it's shown with an image of a bathtub over his head. . . .

Also, welcome, Fallen Serpent!

[Careyp74]

Eureka?


Come on now, you can't believe that vacuum cleaners were invented before the light bulb, do you? You're new, I'll let that one go :)

[GreyICE]

The same time travelers who altered Obama's birth certificate!

[Akhenaten]

The ancient Egyptians, according to Von Daniken...





http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/AtenLightBulb.jpg


It was Osramsiris, by the way.

[six7s]

Generally, content on the internet is automatically copywritten. If it is an original work, and not posted in a use group by the original author, this can be assumed true. That doesn't mean you can't reprint the information. You have to look in the policy to know. Search smarter, not harder...

Google Features: Usage rights (http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=29508)
Take advantage of the usage rights filters on the Advanced Search and Advanced Image Search pages to find web content (such as text, videos, or images) you can reuse, share, or modify.

Anyone can browse the Web, but usage rights come into play if you're looking for content that you can take and use above and beyond fair use. Site owners can use licenses to indicate if and how content on their sites can be reused.

Find all types of reusable content using the Advanced Search page

The usage rights filter on the Advanced Search page shows you pages that are either labeled with a Creative Commons license or labeled as being in the public domain. Here are the different usage rights options available:

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If you're looking for reusable images, use the Advanced Image Search page. In addition to images labeled</snip/>