Practical incandescent light bulb
Bombilla incandescente práctica
- Date
- 1879 · confidence high
- Place
- Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States
- Credited to
- Thomas Edison (carbon filament, high vacuum); Joseph Swan (Newcastle, 1878-1879)
- People
- 👤 Joseph Wilson Swan1828–1914👤 Thomas Alva Edison1847–1931
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
An electric lamp with a carbonised filament in a high-vacuum bulb, lasting hundreds of hours. Combined with a system of generation and distribution, it made electric light commercially viable.
Swan demonstrated a working lamp in Newcastle in 1878-79 and obtained the British patent; Edison and Swan founded Ediswan in 1883 to settle the lawsuit. There were more than 20 earlier inventors (Göbel, Lodygin, Woodward and Evans).
What it led to
- The electrification of cities and homes
- Working hours and evening leisure independent of daylight
- The birth of the electric utility companies and of General Electric
Built on
Made possible
- Cragside, first house lit by hydroelectricity1878
- Pearl Street power station1882
- Edison effect (thermionic emission)1880-1883
- Dry cell battery and flashlight1886–1899
- Vacuum tube (Fleming diode, De Forest triode)1904–1906
- Tungsten filament1904–1911
- Electric traffic light1912–1914
- Tungsten-halogen lamp1955-1959
- Vacuum valve (Edison effect)