How light bulb changed our lives

The term 19th century can be defined as the period that lasted from 1801 through 1900, if the Gregorian calendar is followed to the letters. It is also referred to as the “1800s.” It was the period when the invention of useable electricity, steel, and petroleum products during the 19th century lead to a second industrial revolution (1865–1900), that featured the growth of railways and steam ships, faster and wider means of communication, and inventions with names we all know today.

The 19th century was also the age of machine tools – tools that made tools – machines that made parts for other machines, including interchangeable parts. The assembly line was invented during the 19th century, speeding up the factory production of consumer goods.

It was also this century that gave birth to the professional scientist, the word scientist was first used in 1833 by William Whewell. Inventors began to design practical internal combustion engines. The lightbulb, telephone, typewriter, sewing machine, all came of age during the 19th century. While all the inventions that were made during  this century, one of the  outstanding  ones that have deeply affected our lives is the lightbulb.

Before the invention of the light bulb, lightening up the world after the sun went down was difficult. It took a bunch of candles or torches to fully light up a good-sized room, and oil lamps, while fairly effective, tended to leave a residue of soot on anything in their general vicinity. When the science of electricity really got going in the mid 1800s, inventors everywhere were clamouring to devise a practical, affordable electrical home lighting device.

The invention of electric light bulb changed the world. It changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activities. It was the infrastructure that was built to provide electricity to every home and business that   changed the world. Today, our world is filled with powered devices than we can plug in pretty much anywhere. And we have the light bulb to thanks for it.

In the morning, there is sunlight. But in the night, people use electricity to do tasks. The invention of light bulb allows us to work at night, increasing quality and productivity. It allow us to save money on candles/oil for light and much safer to use.

The invention of the light bulb in the 19th century was a pretty big milestone for the human race, and light bulbs are still in use now- over two hundred years after they were invented.  Instead of relying on candlelight and oil lamps, the light bulb allowed us, for the first time, to light up houses and streets in a way that was resistant to the elements.

How did the invention begin?

Englishman Sir Joseph Swan and American Thomas Edison both got it right around the same time (in 1878 and 1879, respectively), and within 25 years, millions of people around the world had installed electrical lighting in their homes. The easy-to-use technology was such an improvement over the old ways that the world never looked back. Light is a form of energy that can be released by an atom. It is made up of many small particle-like packets that have energy and momentum but no mass. These particles, called light photons, are the most basic units of light.

Atoms release light photons when their electrons become excited. If you have read How Atoms Work, then you know that electrons are the negatively charged particles that move around an atom’s nucleus (which has a net positive charge). An atom’s electrons have different levels of energy, depending on several factors, including their speed and distance from the nucleus. Electrons of different energy levels occupy different orbitals.

According to science , electrons with greater energy move in orbitals farther away from the nucleus. When an atom gains or loses energy, the change is expressed by the movement of electrons. When something passes energy on to an atom, an electron may be temporarily boosted to a higher orbital (farther away from the nucleus). The electron only holds this position for a tiny fraction of a second; almost immediately, it is drawn back toward the nucleus, to its original orbital. As it returns to its original orbital, the electron releases the extra energy in the form of a photon, in some cases a light photon.

The wavelength of the emitted light (which determines its colour) depends on how much energy is released, which depends on the particular position of the electron. Consequently, different sorts of atoms will release different sorts of light photons. In other words, the colour of the light is determined by what kind of atom is excited. This is the basic mechanism at work in nearly all light sources. The main difference between these sources is the process of exciting the atoms.

Sir Humphrey Davy of England invented the first electric carbon arc lamp in 1801. This  lamp works by hooking two carbon rods to a source of electricity. With the other ends of the rods spaced at the right distance, electrical current will flow through an “arc” of vaporizing carbon creating an intense white light.

All arc lamps use current running through different kinds of gas plasma. A.E. Becquerel of France theorized about the fluorescent lamp in 1857. Low pressure arc lights use a big tube of low pressure gas plasma and include: fluorescent lights and neon signs.

In 1835, James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated a constant electric light at a public meeting in Dundee, Scotland. He stated that he could “read a book at a distance of one and a half feet”. However, having perfected the device to his own satisfaction, he turned to the problem of wireless telegraphy and did not develop the electric light any further. His claims are not well documented, although he is credited in Challoner et al. with being the inventor of the “Incandescent Light Bulb”.

Then  came first electric incandescent lamps invented  Sir Joseph Swann of England and Thomas Edison  the first electric incandescent lamps during the 1870s.  This lightbulbs work in this way: electricity flows through the filament that is inside the bulb; the filament has resistance to the electricity; the resistance makes the filament heat to a high temperature; the heated filament then radiates light. All incandescent lamps work by using a physical filament.

Thomas A. Edison’s lamp became the first commercially successful incandescent lamp. He   received U.S. Patent 223,898 for his incandescent lamp in 1880. Incandescent lamps are still in regularly use in our homes, today.

Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Alva Edison did not “invent” the first lightbulb, but rather he improved upon a 50-year-old idea. For example: two inventors that patented an incandescent lightbulb before Thomas Edison did were Henry Woodward and Matthew Evan. According to the National Research Council of Canada:

“Henry Woodward of Toronto, who along with Matthew Evans patented a light bulb in 1875. Unfortunately, the two entrepreneurs could not raise the financing to commercialize their invention. The enterprising American Thomas Edison, who had been working on the same idea, bought the rights to their patent. Capital was not a problem for Edison: he had the backing of a syndicate of industrial interests with $50,000 to invest – a sizable sum at the time. Using lower current, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe, Edison successfully demonstrated the light bulb in 1879 and, as they say, the rest is history.”

In addressing the question of who invented the incandescent lamp, historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. They conclude that Edison’s version was able to outstrip the others because of a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve (by use of the Sprengel pump) and a high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable.+
Another historian, Thomas Hughes, has attributed Edison’s success to his development of an entire, integrated system of electric lighting.  The lamp was a small component in his system of electric lighting, and no more critical to its effective functioning than the Edison Jumbo generator, the Edison main and feeder, and the parallel-distribution system. Other inventors with generators and incandescent lamps, and with comparable ingenuity and excellence, have long been forgotten because their creators did not preside over their introduction in a system of lighting.—Historian Thomas P. Hughes

Has it really  changed our lives?

You can see without a fire, or burning candles, oil lamps and lanterns, which can be dangerous left unattended. Also no need to wait for daylight to do all the work that we wish to do. We can work indoors in bad weather, even on small detailed tasks, and homes can be built with smaller/fewer windows to conserve energy. We can make plans to complete jobs, and they don’t depend on daylight hours, or sunny weather to complete them, especially fine detailed work that requires clear sight. People can work all hours of the day and night, keeping hospital, or medical services, and police, or security services available to those who need it. One’s life and work in general don’t revolve around the time of day, and what the weather, or season may provide in the way of illumination.

Incandescent bulbs are the oldest and, as of 2010, still the most prevalent type of electric lighting in existence. Floodlights are broad-beamed, high-intensity artificial lights often used to illuminate outdoor playing fields while an outdoor sports event is being held during low-light conditions.

In the top tiers of many professional sports, it is a requirement for stadiums to have floodlights to allow games to be scheduled outside daylight hours. Evening or night matches may suit spectators who have work or other commitment earlier in the day. The main motivation for this is television marketing, especially in sports such as Gridiron which rely on TV rights money to finance the sport. Some sports grounds which do not have permanent floodlights installed may make use of portable temporary ones instead.