While Thomas Edison is often credited with inventing the lightbulb, it’s important to recognize the contributions of several inventors who laid the groundwork before him.

While Thomas Edison is commonly recognized as the inventor of the lightbulb, he was not alone in shaping this groundbreaking technology. Alessandro Volta, Humphrey Davy, and Joseph Swan also made significant contributions to its development.

Exploring and Creating New Ideas

The journey of the lightbulb started well before Thomas Edison’s patent for the first commercially successful bulb in 1879. In 1800, Italian inventor Alessandro Volta created the first practical way to produce electricity, known as the voltaic pile.

Consisting of stacked zinc and copper discs separated by layers of saltwater-soaked cardboard, this pile conducted electricity when connected by copper wires. Volta’s experiment, which resulted in a glowing copper wire, is recognized as a precursor to the modern battery and one of the earliest forms of incandescent lighting.

As per Harold H. Schobert’s “Energy and Society: An Introduction” (CRC Press, 2014), the Voltaic Pile provided scientists with a controlled environment to experiment with electric currents, advancing research in electricity.

Shortly after Volta presented his continuous electricity source to the Royal Society in London, Humphrey Davy created the world’s first electric lamp in 1802. Known as an electric arc lamp, it featured bright light arcs between two carbon rods, as documented in “The Life of Sir Humphrey Davy” (HardPress Publishing, 2016).

While Davy’s arc lamp represented progress from Volta’s standalone piles, it wasn’t a practical lighting solution. The lamp burned out swiftly and emitted excessive brightness for domestic or workplace use.

However, in a 2012 lecture for the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, John Meurig Thomas highlighted Davy’s contributions to miners’ safety lamps and street lighting in Paris and other European cities. The principles from Davy’s arc light influenced the development of numerous electric lamps and bulbs throughout the 1800s.

In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue created a lightbulb with a coiled platinum filament, which promised efficiency. However, the high cost of platinum prevented the bulb from achieving commercial success.

Additionally, in 1848, Englishman William Staite enhanced the durability of conventional arc lamps by inventing a clockwork mechanism to regulate the movement of the lamps’ carbon rods. Unfortunately, the expense of the batteries required to power Staite’s lamps restricted their practical use.

Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison: Their Battle of Ideas

In 1850, English chemist Joseph Swan embarked on a mission to make electric lighting more affordable. By 1860, he had devised a lightbulb utilizing carbonized paper filaments as a cost-effective alternative to platinum, as reported by the BBC.

Swan obtained a patent in the U.K. in 1878, and in February 1879, he showcased a functional lamp during a lecture in Newcastle, England, as documented by the Smithsonian Institution.

Similar to previous versions of the lightbulb, Swan’s filaments were encased in a vacuum tube to shield them from oxygen, prolonging their lifespan. However, vacuum pumps at the time were inefficient, and the prototype proved inadequate for everyday use, posing a challenge for Swan.

Edison recognized that the key issue with Swan’s design lay in the filament. He understood that a thin filament with high electrical resistance could make a lamp feasible, as it would need only a small amount of current to produce light. Edison showcased his lightbulb, featuring a platinum filament within a glass vacuum bulb, in December 1879 in Menlo Park, New Jersey, as documented by the Franklin Institute.

Swan adopted this enhancement for his lightbulbs and established an electrical lighting company in England.

Edison initiated a lawsuit for patent infringement, yet Swan’s patent held considerable strength, particularly in the U.K., as reported by CIO. Eventually, the two inventors reconciled and established Edison-Swan United, which evolved into one of the globe’s foremost producers of lightbulbs, as documented by the Science Museum Group.

The First Lightbulb That Actually Worked

Edison’s edge over his competitors came from his ability to create a practical and cost-effective lightbulb, as highlighted by the DOE. Over the course of 1878 to 1880, Edison and his team meticulously tested over 3,000 bulb designs, demonstrating their commitment to innovation and progress in lighting technology.

In November 1879, Edison submitted a patent for an electric lamp featuring a carbon filament, as documented by the National Archives. The patent outlined various materials suitable for the filament, such as cotton, linen, and wood. Over the following year, Edison conducted exhaustive tests on over 6,000 plant specimens to identify the ideal material for the filament, prioritizing longevity and efficiency for his innovative bulb design.

Months following the 1879 patent approval, Edison and his research team made a breakthrough: they found that a carbonized bamboo filament could endure over 1,200 hours of burning, as documented by the Edison Museum.

Bamboo became the preferred material for the filaments in Edison’s bulbs until it gradually gave way to more durable alternatives from the 1880s to the early 1900s.

In 1882, Lewis Howard Latimer, an esteemed researcher working under Edison, patented a more efficient method for manufacturing carbon filaments, as documented by Rutgers University.

Additionally, in 1903, Willis R. Whitney devised a treatment for these filaments, enabling them to emit bright light without darkening the interiors of their glass bulbs, as noted by the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1910, William David Coolidge, an American physicist at General Electric, enhanced the company’s technique for producing tungsten filaments. Tungsten, boasting the highest melting point among chemical elements, was recognized by Edison as an ideal material for lightbulb filaments. However, the technology to manufacture ultra-fine tungsten wire was lacking in the late 19th century.

Even today, tungsten remains the predominant material employed in incandescent bulb filaments.