History of Light bulbs
History of Light bulbs: The History of the Light Bulb – An Electric Dawn
Would it surprise you to know that Thomas Alva Edison did not, in fact, invent the light bulb in 1879? While Edison was certainly responsible for turning the idea of the light bulb into a commercially successful working invention, but the patent he held for the invention itself was not his own original design. Man-made electric lighting actually had its beginnings about seventy years prior, when an English chemist named Humphrey Davy (who was also the man responsible for creating the Davy Lamp, a safety lamp for miners) invented the arc light. This electrical prototype worked through the connection of two wires to a battery, the opposite ends of which were attached to a strip of charcoal. This caused the charcoal, a form of carbon, to become electrically charged and emit a glow surrounded by arcs of electricity.
In 1820, Warren De La Rue enhanced this idea by placing a platinum coil into an empty tube and allowing an electrical current to pass through it: the world’s very first functioning light bulb. While De La Rue’s invention worked and produced ample amounts of light, its costly assembly prevented it from becoming a practical device.
James Prescott Joule’s theory that a resistant conductor would become luminous if an electric current was passed through it sparked the search for a working light bulb filament. Many scientists around the world worked for years on discovering such a filament, but considerations such as safety, cost-effectiveness, and practicality presented numerous obstacles. Finally, in 1860, Joseph Wilson Swan created a carbonized filament in a partial vacuum for an incandescent lamp. Swan’s lamp was capable of remaining lit for thirteen and a half hours, a record Edison would eventually beat with a modified lamp lasting just under fifteen hours. Edison purchased Swan’s patent and continued to improve upon it until he had created a bamboo fiber filament capable of burning for anywhere between 1200-1500 hours.
Categories: History of Light bulbs Tags: History of Light bulbs
Cheap Light Bulbs: World’s Cheapest Light Bulb Shines in Developing Regions
Cheap Light Bulbs: World’s Cheapest Light Bulb Shines in Developing Regions
Students at MIT have recently concocted a genius recycling scheme, ecologically beneficial and capable of helping the environment on a global scale: producing sustainable light bulbs using discarded plastic water bottles. This clever idea, born of a Philippine organization called Isang Litrong Liwanag (“A Liter of Light”), assists in bringing low-cost indoor lighting to regions across the Philippines. And it would certainly be more difficult to find something as wonderfully cost-efficient as these light bulbs are: in addition to the water bottle, the only required components are water and bleach. When assembled correctly, this simple combination is capable of producing lighting equivalent to a 60-watt bulb! The construction of these light bulbs is refreshingly simple: the water and the bleach are poured into a plastic bottle. Sunlight is refracted in all directions by the water, which also disperses the sun’s rays in multiple directions; a single beam, which would traditionally only shine in one small location, can now be used to illuminate an entire area. For its part, the bleach keeps the water clear by preventing the growth of algae and particle build-up inside the bottle. Once assembled, the bottles are put through holes in the roof. Altogether, this process typically takes about an hour to complete. Obviously, these light bulbs are only functional during the day. Still, their installation in Manilla homes has already translated into tremendous cost reductions for families struggling with the high cost of electricity. Over 10,000 of these homemade planet savers have already been installed.
Categories: World’s Cheapest Light Bulb Tags: World’s Cheapest Light Bulb