There are many great inventions which were done by our talented scientists. Some of these inventions were totally unexpected and helped the human civilization a lot. One of these is the invention of bulb.
Can we ever imagine the world with no light? Light has become an essential part of our lifestyle and hence is been considered as one of the greatest inventions ever done. Without bulb, we would have been in the era of darkness. We would have used candles and lamps and would have struggled very hard to get a ray of light. Introduction of bulb made it very easy for us to get light by just switching on a button and getting sufficient light to perform various day- to – day activities and many more. It was not an easy task for the invention of such a great thing. It took various years and utter dedication and struggle of many scientists to develop a substance which greatly impacted to the mankind.
Let us go back to the year of 1879 when the light bulb was invented. The Great scientist with the name, Thomas Alva Edison invented the light bulb. Famously known as America‘s greatest inventor, Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847. It was his child dream to become a scientist in the electrical field. He also invented phonograph and Motion picture camera as his early inventions. Thomas Alva Edison had wished to replace the candles and lamps with something small, safe and cheap electrical device which would serve as light source and would help in coming out of the dark phase of the day (Night).This greatest invention not only helped America , But the whole world and Edison got worldwide famous.
With the passage of time, the light bulb developed more and more useful and many other changes were also done by various other scientists for the greater efficiency of the light bulb.
In 1859, when this amazing device was invented, its primary and main function was to glow the houses of millions of people and also to light the places where millions of workers, work day and night as the light bulb can give less stress to their eyes and they can perform their task efficiently. The light bulb also allowed manufactures and workers to extend their hours of work and also work perfectly at night too. Before its discovery, the people were only working in morning hours and at night they were not able to work as there was no light or very dim of candles and lamps.
Many historians claim that there were over 20 inventors who tried to invent the light bulb much before Edison’s invention. But only Thomas Alva Edison is been credited with the invention of light bulb as his version of bulb was able to outstrip the earlier versions of the same made by various other scientists. It was majorly because of three main factors:
1] He had an effective and well- working incandescent material for the construction of the light bulb.
2] He provided higher vacuum to the bulb than the other inventors.
3] The light bulb constructed by Thomas Alva Edison had high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source, economically viable.
In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first ever electric light. He actually experimented with electricity and invented the electric battery. When he connected copper wires to the battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon started glowing and he observed that the carbon was producing electricity. He called his invention an ‘Electric Arc Lamp’. But a disadvantage of this device was that it produced light, which did not last long and was too much bright for the human use. It would also cause eye problems, if it was continuously used for long period of time.
In 1878, Thomas Alva Edison began serious research for developing a practical working light bulb, which could be safe and cheap. On 14 October, 1878, Edison filed his first patent application for “Improvement in electric lights.” However, as time passed, he continued the test with several types of materials for the bulb`s metal filament to improve his original bulb design and get a modified design. He tested more than 3000 designs from 1800 to 1878. In November 1879 Edison again filed the patent for an electric lamp with a carbon filament. The patent which he filed listed several materials that might be even used for the filament, which included cotton, linen and wood.
He discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could burn for more than even 1200 hours. Bamboo was used as the filament for his light bulb until it was replaced by more modified filaments.
Till today, the light bulb serves as a part of our life. The light bulb is been used everywhere in shops, offices, homes, parks, theatres, school, malls and as street lights. Nowadays, we even have different varieties of light bulb. We even have tube lights and CFL (Compact florescent lamps) for better efficiency. It is because of Thomas Alva Edison`s extreme dedication and hard labour that we are now having the bulb, which light our surroundings even after sunset and before sunrise.
Without light bulbs our world would have been much different, from what it is today. All the thanks goes to the great scientist Thomas Alva Edison, for his contribution to today`s technology. It is because of him that today we are using the so called ‘BULB’. It was a great invention which changed the world.
By Aastha Singh
