The story of the light bulb begins long before Edison patented the first commercially successful bulb in In , 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 cardboards soaked in salt water — the pile conducted electricity when a copper wire was connected at either end. While actually a predecessor of the modern battery , Volta's glowing copper wire is also considered to be one of the earliest manifestations of incandescent lighting.
Not long after Volta presented his discovery of a continuous source of electricity to the Royal Society in London, Humphry Davy, an English chemist and inventor, produced the world's first electric lamp by connecting voltaic piles to charcoal electrodes. Davy's invention was known as an electric arc lamp, named for the bright arc of light emitted between its two carbon rods.
While Davy's arc lamp was certainly an improvement on Volta's stand-alone piles, it still wasn't a very practical source of lighting. This rudimentary lamp burned out quickly and was much too bright for use in a home or workspace. But the principles behind Davy's arc light were used throughout the s in the development of many other electric lamps and bulbs.
In , British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficiently designed light bulb using a coiled platinum filament in place of copper, but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success. And in , Englishman William Staite improved the longevity of conventional arc lamps by developing a clockwork mechanism that regulated the movement of the lamps' quick-to-erode carbon rods.
But the cost of the batteries used to power Staite's lamps put a damper on the inventor's commercial ventures. In , English chemist Joseph Swan tackled the cost-effectiveness problem of previous inventors and by he had developed a light bulb that used carbonized paper filaments in place of ones made of platinum.
Swan received a patent in the United Kingdom in , and in February he demonstrated a working lamp in a lecture in Newcastle, England, according to the Smithsonian Institution. Like earlier renditions of the light bulb, Swan's filaments were placed in a vacuum tube to minimize their exposure to oxygen , extending their lifespan. A type of solid-state lighting, LEDs use a semiconductor to convert electricity into light, are often small in area less than 1 square millimeter and emit light in a specific direction, reducing the need for reflectors and diffusers that can trap light.
They are also the most efficient lights on the market. Pale yellow and green diodes were invented next. As companies continued to improve red diodes and their manufacturing, they began appeari. Explore the history of fluorescent lights , from the Geissler tube to CFLs.
This interactive map is not viewable in your browser. Please view it in a modern browser. Incandescent Bulbs Light the Way Long before Thomas Edison patented -- first in and then a year later in -- and began commercializing his incandescent light bulb, British inventors were demonstrating that electric light was possible with the arc lamp. What are the key facts? Learn more about the history of the incandescent light bulb. Read about the advancements in LED lights.
He also boasted of never needing more than three hours of sleep a night. Per TIME:. When the Ford Motor Co. In some of these photos, Ford seemed attentive and alert, but Edison could be seen asleep — on a bench, in a chair, on the grass. His secret weapon was the catnap, and he elevated it to an art. Home Everyday science Who really invented the light bulb? Read more: Who really invented the movie camera?
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