I hope still in the school teachers teach students that the inventor of the light bulb as Thomas Edison in 1880 with an amazing story. There is no other name mentioned in the lesson.
But, do you know someone called Humphry Davey invented it nearly 80 years before (in 1804) Edison. What he did is, he attached a charcoal strip into a battery. In this era, there was no electricity from the grid, like in these days. But it didn’t come up due to many reasons. One reason can be said, there was no conventional electricity.
Warren de la Rue created a long-lasting light by putting a coiled platinum filament inside a sealed vacuum tube in 1840, before the Edison. It was able to last for a long time. However, it was too expensive. And the electricity problem as earlier.
In 1879 Joseph Wilson Swan created a bulb made out of platinum wires and carbon for light-emitting. It didn’t last long after it turned on. However, this can be said which is the closest to the Edison creation. Actually, Edison developed this same concept in a different way.
And finally, after inventing electricity transmission through a grid which is accessible to many people. Edison reduced the thickness of the filament in order to increase the resistance and gain more light. He used Carbonized Bristol- Board "Horseshoe" filament in 1870 which was able to last 150 hours. Then he created a bulb using carbonated bamboo in 1880 which was able to last for 600 hours. So this is the 1st commercial light bulb. Not the 1st light bulb.
In 1882, a Lewis Howard Latimer has improved the method for the production of carbon filaments for lightbulbs. The Centennial Light is the world's longest-lasting light bulb which was invented the bulb by Adolphe Chaillet in 1901. And it’s still lighting for more than 100 years in Livermore, California, USA.
Nowadays the filament is made of tungsten. This came out in 1904 by Hungarian Sándor Just and Croatian Franjo Hanaman. They invented a tungsten filament lamp that lasted longer and gave brighter light than the carbon filament. And the method of making ductile tungsten is developed by William D. Coolidge in 1906.
Actually, a bulb can last more than what is said now by the manufacturer. They reduce the lasting hours as a marketing strategy, not a technical strategy.
All above those types of bulbs were called indecent bulbs which emit light by a hot material.
In 1913 Irving Langmuir invented neon lights by filling the light bulb with an inert gas. And it also helps to prevent blub to be blacking and twice the luminous efficacy.
Peter Cooper Hewitt invented the fluorescent bulb in 1890 which used in the photography industry. Then after that, CFL also known as Compact fluorescent lamps were invented nearly four decades later. General Electric’s engineer Edward Hammer developed the helical bulb in 1976. 1st commercial CFL bulb manufactured by Philips in 1982.
In 1997 Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura create the first bright blue light-emitting diode (LED) lamp.
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