Incandescent light bulb

An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated to such a high temperature that it glows with visible light (incandescence). The filament, heated by passing an electric current through it, is protected from oxidation with a glass or fused quartz bulb that is filled with inert gas or evacuated. In a halogen lamp, filament evaporation is slowed by a chemical process that redeposits metal vapor onto the filament, extending its life. The light bulb is supplied with electric current by feed-through terminals or wires embedded in the glass. Most bulbs are used in a socket which provides mechanical support and electrical connections.

Incandescent bulbs are manufactured in a wide range of sizes, light output, and voltage ratings, from 1.5 volts to about 300 volts. They require no external regulating equipment, have low manufacturing costs, and work equally well on either alternating current or direct current. As a result, the incandescent lamp is widely used in household and commercial lighting, for portable lighting such as table lamps, car headlamps, and flashlights, and for decorative and advertising lighting.

Incandescent bulbs are much less efficient than most other types of electric lighting; incandescent bulbs convert less than 5% of the energy they use into visible light, with standard light bulbs averaging about 2.2%. The remaining energy is converted into heat. The luminous efficacy of a typical incandescent bulb is 16 lumens per watt, compared with 60 lm/W for a compact fluorescent bulb or 150 lm/W for some white LED lamps. Some applications of the incandescent bulb (such as heat lamps) deliberately use the heat generated by the filament. Such applications include incubators, brooding boxes for poultry, heat lights for reptile tanks, infrared heating for industrial heating and drying processes, lava lamps, and the Easy-Bake Oven toy. Incandescent bulbs typically have short lifetimes compared with other types of lighting; around 1,000 hours for home light bulbs versus typically 10,000 hours for compact fluorescents and 30,000 hours for lighting LEDs.

Incandescent bulbs have been replaced in many applications by other types of electric light, such as fluorescent lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), high-intensity discharge lamps, and light-emitting diode lamps (LED). Some jurisdictions, such as the European Union, China, Canada and United States, are in the process of phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs while others, including Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina and Brazil, have prohibited them already.

Thomas Edison

On October 21, 1879, Thomas Edison devised a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. A New York Times reporter visited Edison there and wrote an article about it that appeared in the paper on Dec. 28, 1879. “The lamp which Mr. Edison regards as a crowning triumph is a model of simplicity and economy,” he said.

Edison was not the first man to create incandescent light. The English scientist Humphrey Davy built a powerful electric lamp in the early 1800s; The Englishman Joseph Swan received a patent on a bulb in 1878 that Edison studied while building his own.

Edison’s feat was creating a lamp that lasted longer and required less power than previous designs that were impractical for everyday use. He also, through his Edison Electrical Light Company (today, General Electric), built a system of power stations to deliver the electricity needed to run his bulbs; he discussed his plans for this in the same New York Times article.

Edison’s light bulb was one great achievement in his brilliant career. Known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” Edison received more than 1,000 patents for his work and created or improved upon items like the phonograph, the motion picture camera and a battery for vehicles.