In 1809, the Englishman Delarue built the first incandescent lamp (with a platinum filament). In 1838, the Belgian Jobard invents the carbon incandescent lamp. In 1854, the German Heinrich Goebel developed the first "modern" lamp - a charred bamboo thread in an evacuated vessel. Over the next 5 years, he developed what many call the first practical lamp. In 1860, the English chemist and physicist Joseph Wilson Swan demonstrated the first results and received a patent, but difficulties in obtaining a vacuum led to the fact that Swan's lamp did not work for long and was ineffective.

On July 11, 1874, Russian engineer Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin received patent number 1619 for a filament lamp. He used a carbon rod placed in an evacuated vessel as a filament.

In 1875, V.F. Didrikhson improved Lodygin's lamp by pumping air out of it and using several hairs in the lamp (if one of them burned out, the next one turned on automatically).

English inventor Joseph Wilson Swan received a British patent for a carbon fiber lamp in 1878. In his lamps, the fiber was in a rarefied oxygen atmosphere, which made it possible to obtain very bright light.

In the second half of the 1870s, the American inventor Thomas Edison carried out research work in which he tried various metals as threads. In 1879 he patented a lamp with a platinum filament. In 1880, he returned to carbon fiber and created a lamp with a lifetime of 40 hours. At the same time, Edison invented the household rotary switch. Despite such a short lifespan, its lamps are replacing the gas lighting used until then.

In the 1890s, A. N. Lodygin invents several types of lamps with filaments made of refractory metals. Lodygin proposed using tungsten filaments in lamps (this is what is used in all modern lamps) and molybdenum and twisting the filament in the shape of a spiral. He made the first attempts to pump air out of lamps, which preserved the filament from oxidation and increased their service life many times over. The first American commercial lamp with a tungsten filament was subsequently produced according to Lodygin's patent. He also manufactured gas-filled lamps (with carbon filament and nitrogen filling).

Since the late 1890s, lamps with filaments made of magnesium oxide, thorium, zirconium and yttrium (Nernst lamp) or filaments of metal osmium (Auer lamp) and tantalum (Bolton and Feuerlein lamp) appeared. In 1904, Hungarians Dr. Sandor Just and Franjo Hanaman received patent No. 34541 for the use of tungsten filament in lamps. The first such lamps were produced in Hungary, entering the market through the Hungarian company Tungsram in 1905. In 1906, Lodygin sold a patent for a tungsten filament to General Electric.

In the same 1906, in the USA, he built and put into operation a plant for the electrochemical production of tungsten, chromium, and titanium. Due to the high cost of tungsten, the patent saw only limited use. In 1910, William David Coolidge invented an improved method for producing tungsten filament. Subsequently, the tungsten filament displaces all other types of filaments.

The remaining problem with the rapid evaporation of the filament in a vacuum was solved by the American scientist, a famous specialist in the field of vacuum technology, Irving Langmuir, who, working since 1909 at General Electric, introduced into production the filling of lamp bulbs with inert, or rather heavy noble, gases (in in particular, argon), which significantly increased their operating time and increased light output.

Efficiency and durability

Almost all the energy supplied to the lamp is converted into radiation. Losses due to thermal conductivity and convection are small. However, only a small range of wavelengths of this radiation is accessible to the human eye. The bulk of the radiation lies in the invisible infrared range and is perceived as heat.

The efficiency of incandescent lamps reaches its maximum value of 15% at a temperature of about 3400 K. At practically achievable temperatures of 2700 K (conventional 60 W lamp), the efficiency is 5%.

As the temperature increases, the efficiency of an incandescent lamp increases, but at the same time its durability decreases significantly. At a filament temperature of 2700 K, the lamp life is approximately 1000 hours, at 3400 K only a few hours, with an increase in voltage by 20%, the brightness doubles. At the same time, the lifetime is reduced by 95%.

Reducing the supply voltage, although it reduces efficiency, increases durability. Thus, lowering the voltage by half (when connected in series) reduces the efficiency by about 4-5 times, but increases the lifetime by almost a thousand times. This effect is often used when it is necessary to provide reliable emergency lighting without special brightness requirements, for example on staircases. Often for this purpose, when powered by alternating current, the lamp is connected in series with a diode, due to which current flows into the lamp only for half the period.

Since the cost of electricity consumed by an incandescent lamp over its service life is tens of times higher than the cost of the lamp itself, there is an optimal voltage at which the cost of the luminous flux is minimal. The optimal voltage is slightly higher than the nominal voltage, so methods for increasing durability by lowering the supply voltage are absolutely unprofitable from an economic point of view.

The limited lifetime of an incandescent lamp is due to a lesser extent to the evaporation of the filament material during operation and to a greater extent to the inhomogeneities that arise in the filament. Uneven evaporation of the filament material leads to the appearance of thinned areas with increased electrical resistance, which leads to even greater heating and evaporation of the material in such places. When one of these constrictions becomes so thin that the filament material at that point melts or completely evaporates, the current is interrupted and the lamp fails.

The greatest wear on the filament occurs when voltage is suddenly applied to the lamp, so its service life can be significantly increased by using various types of soft-start devices.

A tungsten filament has a cold resistivity that is only 2 times higher than that of aluminum. When a lamp burns out, it often happens that the copper wires that connect the base contacts to the spiral holders burn out. Thus, a regular 60 W lamp consumes over 700 W when switched on, and a 100 W lamp consumes more than a kilowatt. As the coil warms up, its resistance increases, and the power drops to its nominal value.

To smooth out peak power, thermistors with a strongly decreasing resistance as they warm up, reactive ballast in the form of capacitance or inductance, and dimmers (automatic or manual) can be used. The voltage on the lamp increases as the coil warms up and can be used to automatically bypass the ballast. Without turning off the ballast, the lamp can lose from 5 to 20% of power, which can also be beneficial for increasing the resource.

Low-voltage incandescent lamps with the same power have a longer life and light output due to the larger cross-section of the incandescent body. Therefore, in multi-lamp lamps (chandeliers), it is advisable to use sequential switching of lamps at a lower voltage instead of parallel switching of lamps at mains voltage. For example, instead of six 220V 60W lamps connected in parallel, use six 36V 60W lamps connected in series, that is, replace six thin spirals with one thick one.

Types of lamps

Incandescent lamps are divided into (arranged in order of increasing efficiency):

• vacuum (the simplest);
• argon (nitrogen-argon);
• krypton (approximately +10% brightness from argon);
• xenon (2 times brighter than argon);
• halogen (filler I or Br, 2.5 times brighter than argon, long service life, do not like underheating, since the halogen cycle does not work);
• halogen with two flasks (more efficient halogen cycle due to better heating of the inner flask);
• xenon-halogen (filler Xe + I or Br, the most effective filler, up to 3 times brighter than argon);
• xenon-halogen with an IR radiation reflector (since most of the lamp radiation is in the IR range, the reflection of IR radiation into the lamp significantly increases the efficiency, produced for hunting flashlights);
• incandescent with a coating that converts IR radiation into the visible range. Development of lamps with high-temperature phosphor is underway, which emits a visible spectrum when heated.

Who invented the light bulb? There is no exact answer to this question.

Often, discoveries and inventions appear among several people at once, and the authorship does not always belong to the one who first expressed the idea, described the hypothesis, published calculations, made drawings, or put the idea into practice.

The first may be someone who is not actually the first, but a well-advertised subsequent one.

People began to illuminate the space around them from the moment they learned to use fire. The further evolution of lighting depended on discoveries in the field of energy.

In order to have light at night, the lamps used:

• various vegetable oils;
• oil;
• wax;
• animal fat;
• a splinter, that is, a slowly smoldering sliver of wood;
• natural gas, etc.

The most ancient method of lighting, besides a fire, is the use of fat. A wick made of cloth or wood was placed in a vessel with fat. The fat prevented the wick from burning quickly. It turned out something like a candle in a vessel.

The idea of ​​a candle finally developed after cultural beekeeping appeared and beeswax could be produced in mass quantities.

After people learned to extract and refine oil, the era of kerosene lamps began. They quickly became a popular way of lighting, replacing the weak light of a torch and expensive wax candles.

Electric light bulbs were able to appear only when electricity began to rapidly spread, first in cities, and then beyond their borders.

How did you get to the opening?

The invention of the light bulb was based on the principle of a conductor glowing when an electric current passes through it. It was known long before the invention of the lamp. However, the main problem of obtaining a reliable, cheap and durable light source from electrical energy was the search for material for incandescent filaments.

In those days, when electricity had already become a reality, and there was no incandescent lamp yet, scientists and practitioners knew only three materials suitable for such use - coal, platinum and tungsten.

Platinum and tungsten were classified as rare and expensive metals. Coal remained the most accessible and cheapest source for obtaining that same filament that could heat up and glow for a long time.

In the 19th century, events began that contributed to the emergence of the well-known electric lamp. In 1820, the Frenchman Delarue made a light bulb with platinum wire. The wire actually heated up and glowed, but such a light bulb remained a prototype.

In 1838, the Belgian explorer Jobard invented a light bulb with a carbon rod as an incandescent element. In 1854, the German Heinrich Goebel used bamboo as a source for incandescent filament. He was the first to use a vessel with evacuated air. It is this vessel with a bamboo thread that is considered the first electric light bulb, which in this form could be used in practice.

Who is the author of the light bulb?

When wondering who invented the first light bulb, we should remember that in this case we are dealing with a whole series of sequential actions when scientists and inventors picked up the ideas of their predecessors and developed them.

1. Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. This Russian mechanic invented not only the first light bulb, but also the first electric candle. With the help of these candles, city streets were first illuminated. The duration of their combustion was no more than 1.5 hours. Later, lamps with automatic replacement of candles were invented. The first Yablochkov candles, of course, cannot be called comfortable. However, they fulfilled their function, marking the beginning of the massive introduction of electricity into the practice of street lighting.
2. Lodygin Alexander Nikolaevich. In 1872, this Russian engineer-inventor realized people's dream of a constant and reliable source of lighting. Lodygin's lamp was the first to receive at least some practical application. It could burn for up to half an hour. On the streets of St. Petersburg, the first Lodygin light bulbs lit up in 1873. In the same year, the inventor received a patent for a lamp with a carbon rod. Thus, Alexander Lodygin came up with a truly modern light bulb. Since 1890, A. N. Lodygin began experiments on the use of various refractory metals in filaments. As a result, he first proposed using tungsten in this capacity. He was also the first to propose pumping air out of the lamp and filling it with inert gas.
3. Joseph Swan. In 1878, this English scientist invented not so much the electric light bulb itself, but its modern modification - a glass flask with a carbon filament.
4. Hiram Maxim. This American inventor is known to military people and gunsmiths around the world as the creator of a machine gun with the Russian name “Maxim”. However, he also invented the original model of a light bulb powered by coal and gasoline. The glass flask was partially filled with gasoline and hermetically sealed. Gasoline vapor was needed to protect the carbon filaments from burning out.

Thomas Edison and Ilyich

Based on the chronology of events and priorities, the electric light bulb was invented by Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin. At the same time, P. N. Yablochkov can be considered the founder of a series of inventions that led to the emergence of the world's most widespread lighting source.

Thanks to these Russian inventors and subsequent developments by British and American researchers, the light bulb became a cheap and common light-producing device.

However, in the process of developing ideas, there is one who originated it, and one who patented it and developed it into a mass phenomenon.

In 1879, American Thomas Edison improved an existing incandescent lamp and received a patent for a lamp with a platinum filament.

A year later, he filed a new patent for a lamp with a carbon filament that could work for 40 hours. In addition to receiving patents, Edison made his real contribution to the creation of the incandescent lamp, inventing the base, socket and switch.

Thus, Thomas Edison patented the electric light bulb as his invention a year later than the current Maxim model and almost 6 years after the public demonstration of Lodygin’s light bulb.

T. Edison's patent activities had their commercial fruits: teaming up with Joseph Swan, he created his own company to produce the first incandescent light bulbs.

T. Edison and H. Maxim, finding themselves competitors in such a commercially significant business, entered into a bureaucratic dispute with each other. T. Edison turned out to be more enterprising and efficient. Kh. Maxim not only did not receive a patent in this fight, but also, having suffered significant losses, was forced to retreat and leave for Europe.

And who, in this case, invented Ilyich’s light bulb? For the younger generation, the answer to this question may be fraught with mysteries. The fact is that such a name appeared only in the Soviet Union, passing into the Russian lexicon as a historical phenomenon.

Ilyich's light bulb is actually the name not so much of a device as of an entire phenomenon. In 1921, when all of Russia was in a deep economic crisis after a devastating civil war, the State Commission for Electrification of Russia adopted the GOELRO plan. It represented the first strategic plan for economic development in the new country, based on the formation of an energy base.

Electrification of the entire country was carried out at an unprecedented pace. Soon, in villages where they lit their homes only with a torch or kerosene lamp, electric light bulbs appeared.

Since the GOELRO plan was the brainchild of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the light bulbs that were lit in the huts of distant villages began to be called Ilyich’s light bulbs.

Thus, the invention of the electric lamp is associated with the name of T. Edison, because he promptly patented the already invented device and began its production on an industrial scale.

In Russia, the incandescent lamp is associated with the name of the person who supplied the entire country with affordable electricity, lighting the light bulbs invented by A. N. Lodygin.

The electric incandescent lamp has long become an object without which it is difficult to imagine our lives. In the evening, when entering a house or apartment, the first thing we do is flip the switch in the hallway and within a moment a bright light flashes, dispelling the darkness around us. And at the same time, we don’t think about where such an ordinary light bulb came to us from and who invented the light bulb. The electric lamp has long become commonplace for us, but once upon a time it was akin to a real miracle.

Before the invention of electricity, people lived in twilight. With the onset of darkness, the dwellings were plunged into darkness and their inhabitants, in order to somehow disperse the darkness that frightened them, lit a fire.

To illuminate houses in different countries, lamps of various designs, torches, candles, and torches were used, and fires were lit in the open air, for example, on the road or in military camps. People treasured these light sources; they invented legends and composed songs about them.

However, the inquisitive human mind already in ancient times was looking for an alternative to all these devices. After all, they all gave little light, smoked heavily, filling the room with smoke, and besides, they could go out at any minute. Archaeologists who discovered amazing paintings inside the ancient Egyptian pyramids could not help but wonder how the ancient artists made these drawings despite the fact that natural light did not penetrate into the pyramids, and no soot was found on the walls and ceiling from torches or lamps. It is likely that the answer to this question has already been found in the city of Dendera, in the temple of the goddess Hathor. It is there that there are bas-reliefs, which may depict an ancient electric lamp similar to a gas-discharge lamp.

In the 9th century AD. In the Middle East, an oil lamp was invented, which became the prototype of a kerosene lamp, but it did not become widespread and remained a rare curiosity.

Thus, until the middle of the 19th century, the most popular light sources remained oil and fat lamps, candles, lanterns and torches, and in camp conditions - the same fires as in ancient times.

The kerosene lamp, invented in the middle of the 19th century, supplanted all other sources of artificial lighting, although not for long: until the electric light bulb appeared - the most common for us, but absolutely amazing for the people of that time.

At the dawn of discovery

The operation of the first incandescent lamps was based on the principle that conductors glow when electric current is passed through them. This very property of such materials was known long before the invention of the light bulb. The problem was that for a very long time the inventors could not find a suitable material for an incandescent filament that would provide long-lasting and effective, and also inexpensive lighting.

Background to the appearance of incandescent lamps:

Who first invented the light bulb

In the 1870s, serious work began on the invention of the electric light bulb. Many prominent scientists and inventors devoted years and decades of their lives to working on this project. Lodygin, Yablochkov and Edison - these three inventors worked in parallel on the design of incandescent lamps, so disputes still continue about which of them can be considered the world's first inventor of the incandescent electric lamp.

Lamp by A. N. Lodygin

He began his experiments on the invention of the incandescent lamp in 1870 after his retirement. At the same time, the inventor was simultaneously working on several projects: creating an electric plane, a diving apparatus and a light bulb.

In 1871-1874, he conducted experiments to find the most suitable material for an incandescent coil. Having initially tried to use iron wire and failed, the inventor began experimenting with a carbon rod placed in a glass container.

In 1874, Lodygin received a patent for the incandescent lamp he invented, not only Russian, but also international, patenting his invention in many European countries and even in India and Australia.

In 1884, for political reasons, the inventor left Russia. For the next 23 years he worked alternately in France and in the USA. Even in exile, he continued to develop new designs for incandescent lamps, patenting those that used refractory metals as the material for the spiral. In 1906, Lodygin sold these patents to the General Electric Company in the USA. During his research, the inventor came to the conclusion that the best materials for incandescent filaments are tungsten and molybdenum. And the first incandescent lamps produced in the USA were made according to his design and with tungsten filament.

Yablochkov's lamp P.N.

In 1875, finding himself in Paris, he began inventing an arc lamp without a regulator. Yablochkov had begun work on this project even earlier, while living in Moscow, but failed. The capital of France became the city where he was able to achieve outstanding results.

By the beginning of the spring of 1876, the inventor completed work on the design of an electric candle, and on March 23 of the same year he received a patent for it in France. This day became significant not only in the fate of P. N. Yablochkov himself, but also a turning point for the further development of electrical and lighting engineering.

Yablochkov's candle was simpler and cheaper to operate than Lodygin's coal lamp. In addition, it did not have any springs or any mechanisms. It looked like two rods clamped in two separate terminals of a candlestick, which were separated by a kaolin partition, isolating them from each other. An arc charge was ignited at the upper ends, after which the arc flame slowly burned the coal and vaporized the insulating material, at the same time emitting a bright glow.

Later, Yablochkov tried to change the color of the lighting, for which he added salts of various metals to the insulating material for the partition.

In April 1876, the inventor demonstrated his candle at an electrical exhibition in London. The large audience was delighted with the bright bluish-white electric light that flooded the room.

The success was incredible. The scientist and his invention were written about in the foreign press. And already at the end of the 1870s, streets, shops, theaters, hippodromes, palaces and mansions were illuminated with electric candles not only in Europe, but also in the USA, Brazil, Mexico, India, Burma and Cambodia. And in Russia, the first test of Yablochkov’s electric candles took place in the fall of 1878.

It was a real triumph for the Russian inventor. After all, before his candle, there was not a single invention in the field of electrical engineering that would so quickly become popular throughout the world.

Edison lamp T.A.

He conducted his experiments with incandescent lamps in the late 1870s, that is, he worked on this project simultaneously with Lodygin and Yablochkov.

In April 1879, Edison experimentally came to the conclusion that without a vacuum, none of the incandescent lamps would work, or if they did, it would be extremely short-lived. And already in October of the same year, an American researcher completed work on a project for a carbon incandescent lamp, which is considered one of the most important inventions of the 19th century.

In 1882, together with several prominent financiers, the inventor founded the company Edison General Electric c, where they began to manufacture various electrical appliances. To win the market, Edison even went so far as to set the selling price of the lamp at 40 cents, despite the fact that its production cost 110 cents. Subsequently, the inventor suffered losses for four years, although he tried to reduce the cost of incandescent lamps. And when the cost of their production dropped to 22 cents, and the output reached a million pieces, he was able to cover all previous costs within a year, so that further production brought him only profit.

But what was Edison's innovation in inventing the incandescent lamp, other than the fact that he was the first to consider this subject as a means of making a profit? His merit lies not at all in the invention of lamps of this type, but in the fact that he was the first to create a practical and widespread system of electric lighting. And he came up with the modern, familiar shape of the lamp to all of us, as well as a screw base, socket and fuses.

Thomas Edison was distinguished by his high efficiency and always took a very responsible approach to business. So, in order to finally decide on the choice of material for the incandescent filament, he tried more than six thousand samples until he came to the conclusion that the most suitable material for this was carbonized bamboo.

Based on chronology, the inventor of the light bulb is Lodygin. It was he who invented the first lamp for lighting, and he was the first who guessed to pump out air from a glass bulb and use tungsten as an incandescent filament. Yablochkov’s “electric candle” is based on slightly different operating principles and does not require a vacuum, but for the first time, streets and premises began to be illuminated en masse with his candles. As for Edison, it was he who invented the lamp of modern forms, as well as the base, socket and fuses. Therefore, while giving the palm of invention to the first of these three inventors, the role of other researchers cannot be underestimated.

It is difficult to imagine how people used to exist without an electric lamp. When the electricity goes out for technical reasons, everyone around freezes in anticipation. There is a feeling that the pulse of the planet is slowing down. Let's try to trace the evolution of this device, which we simply cannot do without now.

A little history

Who invented the first incandescent light bulb? It is very difficult to answer this question specifically and without doubt. All this is because more than one specific person took part in the invention. At different times and at different stages of development of the electric lamp, many people contributed their work and knowledge to make it the way we see and know it now.

At first glance, the lamp may seem simple, but in fact it is quite a complex technology. Even in ancient Egypt and among the people of the Mediterranean oils were used to illuminate homes, which were poured into special vessels with wicks made of cotton threads. On the shores of the Caspian Sea, oil was used instead of oils. Already at that time, people were coming up with various technologies to help them see in the dark.

It is absolutely known that the incandescent lamp was invented in the 19th century. Throughout this time, many people have tried to invent and improve the "electric candle".

Several people took an active part in the invention of the electric light bulb, namely:

• Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich;
• Gerard;
• Delarue;
• Heinrich Goebel;
• Lodygin Alexander Nikolaevich;
• Thomas Edison;
• William David Coolidge.

Stages of invention development

The first incandescent lamp, which closely resembled a real one, was invented by Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. He devoted his entire life to electrical engineering. Inventing innovations in this area and implementing all this in life was his main occupation. The first electric candle is also his invention. Thanks to his candles it became possible to illuminate cities at night. The first electric candles appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg. This candle was inexpensive and lasted for an hour and a half. After burning out, it had to be replaced with a new one. City janitors were responsible for the work. Later, to make their work easier, lanterns with automatic candle changes were invented.

In 1838, the Belgian Gerard managed to invent an electric lamp in which a carbon rod served as the light source and an electric current was supplied to it.

Two years after this, a resident of England with French roots, Delarue, came up with the idea of ​​using a platinum filament for incandescence instead of coal. These two options were considered a huge impetus for the invention of the incandescent electric lamp, but in practice at that time their use was accompanied by many inconveniences. Carbon incandescent lamp was uncomfortable and burned out quickly, and an electric lamp using a platinum thread was distinguished by its high cost. Therefore, many continued to look for other alternative options, invented and implemented more and more new light sources. Everyone wanted the incandescent lamp to burn as long as possible, but many failed in their work on the invention.

In 1854, the German scientist Heinrich Goebel came up with the idea that an incandescent lamp would burn longer in a vacuum space. The burning time of the electric lamp was extended by several hours. Scientists spent several more years trying to ensure a complete vacuum in the lamp.

And only in 1874, our compatriot Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin managed to invent and create an ideal electric lamp that burned constantly. His brainchild passed all the tests. It was then that the real modern lamp was invented. Lodygin is therefore considered the discoverer, since his light bulb could have been on for almost half an hour. After the air was pumped out of her, she continued to work again. In 1983, for the first time, the streets of St. Petersburg were illuminated with Lodygin light bulbs. Alexander Nikolaevich came from a noble Russian family, despite the poverty of his family. His ancestor was a common ancestor with the Romanovs - Andrei Kobyla.

In America, they learned about these experiments and inventions of Alexander Nikolaevich, thanks to the naval officer N. Khotinsky. The Russian Empire ordered cruisers from America. During one of the naval officer's visits to America, he visited the laboratory of Thomas Edison and handed over to him the inventions of Yablochkov and Lodygin. Thomas Edison began trying to improve the seemingly perfect incandescent lamp. In 1879 he managed to do this. Instead of a coal rod, Thomas I tried using beech thread and achieved the desired result. The light bulb began to burn much longer.

Thomas went to this result for many days. He had to overcome more than 6,000 attempts with carbon threads. He always achieved what he wanted and found what he was looking for. His light bulbs could burn for a hundred hours. In November, Thomas allegedly patented his invention, which outraged Yablochkov; he made accusations against the American.

This invention was not the only merit of Thomas Edison. He also created a household rotary switch, without which it is difficult to imagine the operation of an electric light bulb, base and socket. His name is associated with the invention of the telephone transmitter, mimeograph and phonograph. He was the first to open large-scale production of light bulbs, which helped many people experience the beauty of electricity. Over the next ten years many scientists tried to improve the light bulb, but Thomas Edison was considered its inventor.

Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin continued, independently of his colleague and competitor from America, to create and modernize his brainchild. He was looking for a universal and long-lasting filament. He managed to achieve good success using tungsten and molybdenum filaments. It was expensive to produce lamps from these materials at that time, so the invention turned out to be ineffective and costly. In 1910, American explorer William David Coolidge managed to simplify the creation of tungsten filament, this became cheaper and made it possible to mass produce inexpensive incandescent light bulbs.

Let there be light!

The result is a modern incandescent light bulb, which consists of several important elements.

1. Flask.
2. The cavities of the flask (vacuum or gas-filled).
3. The body of the filament.
4. Electrodes (current input).
5. Hooks for maintaining the glowing body.
6. Lamp legs.
7. External link of down conductor, fuse.
8. Plinth housing.
9. Base (glass) insulator.
10. Contact bottom of the base.

Conclusion

Thus, Lenin himself had nothing to do with the creation of “Ilyich’s light bulb”. Several people worked almost simultaneously on this wonderful invention, which finally managed to dispel the darkness. Each of them made a significant contribution to the creation of a real electric light bulb. If you answer the question of who invented the lamp, you should definitely remember all these people. With your painstaking work they helped bring the invention from laboratories to our homes and fundamentally change people's lives for the better. All together and each individually is worthy of our attention, respect and gratitude.

It is difficult to meet a person who is not familiar with incandescent lamps - the devices have been illuminating the premises of houses and city streets for 100 years. The development of technology is gradually replacing the “Ilyich light bulbs,” but they are still found in life.

Bulbs are intended for:

• General use. Used for decoration and lighting.
• Decorative, the bulb of which is made in the form of figures.
• Low voltage lamps - from 2.5 to 42 V. They are used in places of increased danger - in open areas, basements.
• Colored light sources are produced in colored glass flasks. Before the invention of LEDs, they were used in decorative lighting of stages and film sets, and in organizing presentations.
• Signal. Used to display data in information boards.
• Lamps for vehicles. They are distinguished by their strength and resistance to vibration loads.
• Lighting floodlights. Due to their high power, they were used to illuminate open spaces - in stadiums, railway stations, and floodlights used by security personnel.
• Special lamps for optics - film projectors, measuring and medical instruments.

The incandescent lamp was originally invented; it seems like a simple device - but in fact it is not.

How did you go about the opening?

The history of the incandescent lamp began at the beginning of the 19th century. In school physics courses, Thomas Edison (1847–1931) is considered to be the inventor of the incandescent lamp, however, the product had ancestors.

In 1803, the Russian inventor Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov (1761–1834), while studying the conductivity of materials, obtained an electric arc between carbon conductors. He proposed using the phenomenon to illuminate space. However, due to the rapid combustion of coal, the discovery did not receive practical application in those years.

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More about V.P. Petrov is told in the video:

The arc discharge between carbon rods was scientifically described in 1809 by Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829), the founder of the English school of electrochemistry. The works became the basis for subsequent discoveries. Only in 1838, the Belgian Jobard created a stable working prototype of a lamp with a carbon core; combustion took place in air, so the destruction of the electrode was completed very quickly.

Soon, in 1840, a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, an Englishman by birth, Warren Delarue (1815–1989), used platinum as a filament material. The device successfully illuminated the room, but due to the high cost of the precious metal and its low strength properties, it did not reach industrial use.

The devices of Jobard and Delarue became a breakthrough in science, but were not patented.

The first patent was obtained by the Irishman Frederick de Mollane in 1841. The device was a platinum spiral placed in a vacuum - this increased the service life.

American John W. Starr received an American patent in 1844 and a British patent the following year for light bulbs with carbon filament. Work stopped, the lamp series did not go into production due to the death of the inventor.

The great French scientist Jean Bernard Foucault also did not ignore the study of the electric arc. By replacing charcoal with retort carbon electrodes in 1844, he achieved an increase in the service life of the device, simultaneously inventing the “first dimmer” - the light intensity was regulated by changing the length of the electric arc.

The next step was taken by Heinrich G e Belem from Germany. He conducted experiments using charred bamboo sticks in the vacuum of a flask as electrodes. Goebel's device is considered the prototype of the first light bulb.

From 1860 to 1878, the Englishman Joseph Wilson Swan (Swan) worked on the use of carbon fiber and eventually received a patent for the invention of the lamp. A special feature of the device was a rarefied oxygen atmosphere in which the carbon fiber was heated and emitted visible light. The technology has made it possible to increase the visible glow.

Filament close up

In parallel with Swan, the Russian scientist A.N. Lodygin conducted experiments and received a patent for a filament lamp in 1874. Vasily Fedorovich Didrikhson, a Russian scientist, improved the design of his compatriot. The air was evacuated from the flask, and several electrodes were installed. After one electrode burned out, the next electrode began to glow - the service time increased.

In 1976, Russian physicist Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, while studying insulating materials, used white clay (kaolin) to coat the threads. The lamp glowed in air without requiring the creation of a vacuum. To start it, the threads had to be heated with matches. The inventor himself was skeptical about electric lighting and stopped working in this direction. However, for some time Yablochkov lamps were produced on an industrial scale, but were eventually replaced by incandescent lamps. Paris, London, and St. Petersburg were illuminated with such devices, and lamps were installed on locomotives and ships.

Thomas Edison (USA) managed to improve the inventions of Lodygin and Yablochkov. In 1880, a patent was received for a lamp with carbon electrodes.

The invention made by A.N. Lodygin

The scientist began his work by developing a lamp with carbon electrodes. For the results achieved, he received a prize from the Academy of Sciences, but continued his experiments. In 1874, Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin patented a lamp with a filament incandescent body. The essence of the invention was the heating of a platinum (tungsten) filament in a vacuum flask.

Combustion is a chemical oxidative reaction involving oxygen. A vacuum implies the absence of oxygen, therefore the rate of oxidation decreases sharply. Thanks to this property, Lodygin’s lamps received an increased service life. By 1890, lamps similar to today's were developed with filaments twisted into a spiral, made from tungsten or molybdenum, which reduced their cost compared to platinum ones.

Thomas Edison's contributions

At the end of the 1870s, the world-famous American scientist Thomas Edison took up the task of improving electric lamps.

In order to extend the service life of the thread, attempts were made to turn off the voltage after heating the spiral to the maximum permissible temperatures. For this purpose, an automatic switch was built into the flask. However, this path did not lead to an acceptable result - blinking was visible.

The focus of research shifted to experiments with material for making filaments. About 2000 experiments were carried out.

Edison with his invention

As a result, in 1879, Edison received a patent for a light bulb with a platinum spiral and a burning time of up to 40 hours.

Expert opinion

Alexey Bartosh

Specialist in repair and maintenance of electrical equipment and industrial electronics.

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Important! It is worth noting that Lodygin simply did not have enough money to obtain a patent in America. Therefore, the invention is attributed to Edison.

The main difference from Lodygin’s devices is the creation of a vacuum with less air remaining in the flask. In 1880, Edison's lamps with bamboo electrodes burned for about 600 hours. Of no small importance in the spread of Edison's lamps was the screw base design he invented, which made it possible to quickly and safely replace failed devices.

Patent wars led to the formation of a joint venture between Swans and Edison, which eventually grew into the world leader in the sale of electric lamps. The increase in production resulted in a reduction in the cost of the product and an even greater distribution.

Thus, the development of incandescent lamp manufacturing technology was carried out by scientists from Russia, Germany, the USA, Belgium, and Great Britain. Combining the best, Thomas Edison organized the mass production of devices in practice. That's why he is credited with authorship.

What does it represent?

An incandescent lamp is an electrical device in which light is emitted by an incandescent body, heated by an electric current passing through it. Oxidation (combustion) of the filament is prevented by placing it in a vacuum created in a sealed glass flask. Voltage is supplied to the filament through contacts located in the base.

Filling the inner space of the flask with halogen gas. Iodine and bromine are added to the remaining oxygen. Under natural conditions, bromine is a liquid, and iodine is crystals. This reduces wear on the filament, allowing it to be heated to a higher temperature. All this allows you to increase the service life of the product. The spiral material in modern light sources is tungsten, rhenium, and rarely osmium.

All incandescent lamp elements

Design features

The designs of modern lamps differ in various respects:

• Flask shape.
• The structure of the base.
• Filler gas.
• The presence of a fuse inside the structure.
• The material of the filament body.
• Features depending on the purpose.

Manufacturers offer a variety of lamp bulb designs to choose from. Some varieties are shown in the figure. The consumer selects the appropriate shape based on the permissible power and size of the luminaires. To create directionality of the light flow, the inside of the bulb is coated with a layer of aluminum.

Options for incandescent lamp shapes

There are lamps with and without a base.

The classic threaded connection was first proposed by Soun, and Edison creatively developed the idea - hence the letter marking of the screw base E, after the first letter of the inventor's last name.

Some models of socles are shown in the figure:

Main types of incandescent lamp bases

In countries with different voltage levels in electrical networks, lamps are sold with sockets that prevent screwing into sockets designed for other voltages. For example, in the USA, where the voltage level is 110–127 V, it will not be possible to screw in a light bulb for Europe (220–240V).

The luminosity and durability of the lamp depend on the composition of the gas with which the flask is filled. For example, halogen gas helps to heat the filament to high temperatures, while maintaining service life. Thanks to the effect, halogen lamps appeared; with the same luminosity, they are smaller in size and energy consumption compared to vacuum models.

Today, lamps with bulb filling are common:

• Vacuum.
• Argon or nitrogen-argon.
• Xenon.
• Kryptonian.

The fuse protects the flask from explosion when the spiral burns out. When the filament breaks, hot drops of tungsten fall on the walls of the flask, it is burned, and an explosion occurs with scattering of fragments. The fuse is a part of the supply conductor located in atmospheric air inside the base. A spark that occurs in a vacuum is quickly extinguished. Black “smoke” may appear in the lamp, but the bulb remains intact.

Large-scale appearance of lamps on the market

The appearance of lamps on the market is associated with low cost and ease of use in comparison with gas, gasoline and oil lamps. Humanity continues to improve the device throughout history after their appearance. Developments have led to the emergence of products that perform a variety of functions:

• High luminosity projection lamps. The design of the device eliminates the appearance of shadowed areas at the edges of the zone to prevent poor-quality image display on the screen.
• Light bulbs for illuminating buttons and switches in radio equipment.
• Photo lamps - flashes and pilot lamps (constant light at low power) are designed for instant or long-term illumination of the photographic location.
• The headlight lamp is made in one housing with a reflector and focusing glass.
• Models with two threads are intended for use in car headlights (low and high beam), car rear lights (dimensions and brake lights). They are installed in such light sources in places where there may be a need for redundancy. If one of the spirals burned out, the backup one was ignited.
• Heating lamps are used in laser printers.
• Lamps with a special emission spectrum for scientific instruments.

Incandescent lamps have gone through a long evolutionary process. In lighting they are being replaced by LEDs, but in many areas of technology one cannot do without such devices.