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Joseph Swan, alongside Thomas Edison, is the person most credited with the invention of the light bulb. The Sunderland-born chemist created the first successful incandescent filament electric lamp and gave public demonstrations of it in late 1878 and early 1879.
- Early Research & Development
- Joseph Swan vs. Thomas Edison
- First Practical Incandescent Lightbulb
- Additional Resources
The story of the lightbulb begins long before Edison patented the first commercially successful bulb in 1879. In 1800, Italian inventor Alessandro Volta developed the first practical method of generating electricity, the voltaic pile. Made of alternating discs of zinc and copper— interspersed with layers of cardboard soaked in salt water — the pile...
In 1850, English chemist Joseph Swan began trying to make electrical light more economical, and by 1860 he had developed a lightbulb that used carbonized paper filaments in place of those made of platinum, according to the BBC. Swan received a patent in the U.K. in 1878, and in February 1879 he demonstrated a working lamp in a lecture in Newcastle,...
Where Edison surpassed his competition was in developing a practical and inexpensive lightbulb, according to the DOE. Edison and his team of researchers tested more than 3,000 designs for bulbs between 1878 and 1880. In Nov. 1879, Edison filed a patent for an electric lamp with a carbon filament, according to the National Archives.The patent listed...
Read more about Franklin's invention at the Franklin Institute. Learn more about Thomas Edison's life from MIT. Watch a video about how light bulbs work from minutephysics on YouTube.
Jul 18, 2023 · The voltaic pile inspired British chemist Humphry Davy to design a battery of his own and use it to power an arc lamp. The arc lamp did in fact produce visible light contained in a bulb, and since it debuted in 1806, Davy's invention beat Edison's by over seven decades.
Nov 22, 2013 · Learn how electric lighting evolved from arc lamps to incandescent bulbs to fluorescent and LED lights. Discover the contributions of Edison, Swan, Sawyer, Man, Langmuir and other inventors who shaped the history of the light bulb.
Nov 9, 2009 · Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor and savvy businessman who acquired a record number of 1,093 patents (singly or jointly) and was the driving force behind such innovations as the...
It was actually British inventor Sir Humphry Davy who was the first to invent the electric light in 1809. Davy Sir Humphry 1778-1829 LIFE Photo Collection. He made the discovery by...
Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention—the light bulb, the first practical electric incandescent lamp.
