Editing Incandescent light bulb (section)

====Carbon filament and vacuum====
[[File:carbonfilament.jpg|thumb|left|Carbon filament lamps, showing darkening of bulb]]
[[File:Joseph Wilson Swan.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Sir Joseph Wilson Swan]]]]
[[Joseph Swan]] (1828–1914) was a British physicist and chemist. In 1850, he began working with carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. By 1860, he was able to demonstrate a working device but the lack of a good vacuum and an adequate supply of electricity resulted in a short lifetime for the bulb and an inefficient source of light. By the mid-1870s better pumps had become available, and Swan returned to his experiments.<ref name="guarnieri 7-1">{{Cite journal|last=Guarnieri|first=M.|year=2015|title=Switching the Light: From Chemical to Electrical|journal=IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine|volume=9|issue=3|pages=44–47|doi=10.1109/MIE.2015.2454038|hdl=11577/3164116|s2cid=2986686|url=https://www.research.unipd.it/bitstream/11577/3164116/5/21%20LightElectric.pdf|hdl-access=free|access-date=2 September 2019|archive-date=14 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214220606/https://www.research.unipd.it/retrieve/handle/11577/3164116/225053/21%20LightElectric.pdf|url-status=live | issn=1932-4529 }}</ref>

[[File:Sir Joseph Swan blue plaque.jpg|thumb|Historical plaque at [[Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead|Underhill]], the first house to be lit by electric lights]]
With the help of [[Charles Stearn]], an expert on vacuum pumps, in 1878, Swan developed a method of processing that avoided the early bulb blackening. This received a British Patent in 1880.<ref name="Incandescent Electric Lamp 21-25">{{cite book |last=Swan |first=K R |title=Sir Joseph Swan and the Invention of the Incandescent Electric Lamp |year=1946 |publisher=Longmans, Green and Co. |pages=21–25}}</ref> On 18 December 1878, a lamp using a slender carbon rod was shown at a meeting of the [[Newcastle Chemical Society]], and Swan gave a working demonstration at their meeting on 17 January 1879.<ref name=RSoC>{{Cite web |website=Royal society of chemistry |title=Reward offered for oldest working light bulb in a British home |date=30 January 2009 |url=https://www.rsc.org/news-events/articles/2009/01-january/light-bulb/ |access-date=9 March 2025}}</ref> It was also shown to 700 who attended a meeting of the [[Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne]] on 3 February 1879.<ref name=WIRED>{{cite magazine |title=Dec. 18, 1878: Let There Be Light — Electric Light |url=https://www.wired.com/2009/12/1218joseph-swan-electric-bulb/ |date=18 December 2009 |magazine=WIRED |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161021003405/https://www.wired.com/2009/12/1218joseph-swan-electric-bulb/ |archive-date=21 October 2016}}</ref><ref name=RSoC/> The society's building was the first public building to be lit by electricity. The lamps Swan demonstrated used a carbon rod from an arc lamp rather than a slender filament. Thus they had low resistance and required very large conductors to supply the necessary current, so they were not commercially practical, although they did furnish a demonstration of the possibilities of incandescent lighting with relatively high vacuum, a carbon conductor, and platinum lead-in wires. This bulb lasted about 40 hours.<ref name=WIRED/>

Swan then turned his attention to producing a better carbon filament and the means of attaching its ends. He devised a method of treating cotton to produce 'parchmentised thread' in the early 1880s and obtained British Patent 4933 that same year.<ref name="Incandescent Electric Lamp 21-25"/> From this year he began installing light bulbs in homes and landmarks in England. His house, [[Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead]], was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb. In the early 1880s he had started his company.<ref>R.C. Chirnside. Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS – The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne 1979.</ref> In 1881, the [[Savoy Theatre]] in the [[City of Westminster]], London was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, which was the first theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit entirely by electricity.<ref name=Times>"The Savoy Theatre", ''[[The Times]]'', 3 October 1881</ref> The first street in the world to be lit by an incandescent lamps was Mosley Street, [[Newcastle upon Tyne]], [[United Kingdom]] in 1880.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/exhibitions/current-and-past-exhibitions/very_truly_yours/science/swan/electric_light/ |title=Electric lighting |publisher=Newcastle University Library |date=23 October 2013|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606212620/http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/exhibitions/current-and-past-exhibitions/very_truly_yours/science/swan/electric_light/ |archive-date=6 June 2014}}</ref><ref>[[:commons:File:Sir Joseph William Swan FRS (RSC National Chemical Landmark).jpg|Sir Joseph William Swan FRS (RSC National Chemical Landmark)]]{{Circular reference|date=September 2021}}</ref>
[[File:Edison, Maxim, and Swan bulbs.svg|thumb|Comparison of Edison, Maxim, and Swan bulbs, 1885]]
[[File:Edison incandescent lights.jpg|thumb|left|Edison carbon filament lamps, early 1880s]]
[[File:Thomas edison glühbirne.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Thomas Alva Edison]]]]
[[Thomas Edison]] began serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp in 1878. Edison filed his first patent application for "Improvement in Electric Lights" on 14 October 1878.<ref>{{US patent|0214636}}.</ref> After many experiments, first with [[carbon]] in the early 1880s and then with [[platinum]] and other metals, in the end Edison returned to a carbon filament.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The story of great inventions |last=Burns |first=Elmer Ellsworth |url=https://archive.org/details/storygreatinven01burngoog |page=[https://archive.org/details/storygreatinven01burngoog/page/n146 123] |year=1910 |publisher=[[Harper & Brothers]]}}</ref> The first successful test was on 22 October 1879,<ref>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Israel |title=Edison: a Life of Invention |url=https://archive.org/details/edisonlifeofinve0000isra |url-access=registration |publisher=Wiley |year=1998 |page=[https://archive.org/details/edisonlifeofinve0000isra/page/186 186]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Thomas Edison: Original Letters and Primary Sources |url=http://www.shapell.org/btl.aspx?2718806 |publisher=Shapell Manuscript Foundation |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119173416/http://www.shapell.org/btl.aspx?2718806 |archive-date=19 January 2012}}</ref> and lasted 13.5 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by 4 November 1879, filed for a US patent for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platina contact wires."<ref name=Patent898>{{US patent|0223898}} granted 27 January 1880</ref> Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including using "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways,"<ref name="Patent898"/> Edison and his team later discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last more than 1200 hours.<ref>{{cite book |last=Levy |first=Joel |title=Really useful: the origins of everyday things |year=2002 |publisher=Firefly Books |location=New York |isbn=9781552976227 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reallyusefulorig00levy/page/124 124] |url=https://archive.org/details/reallyusefulorig00levy|url-access=registration |quote=bamboo filament edison patent 1200. }}</ref> In 1880, the [[Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company]] steamer, [[SS Columbia (1880)|''Columbia'']], became the first application for Edison's incandescent electric lamps (it was also the first ship to use a [[dynamo]]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Belyk |first=Robert C. |title=Great Shipwrecks of the Pacific Coast |location=New York |publisher=Wiley |year=2001 |isbn=0-471-38420-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Jehl |first=Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FSNVAAAAMAAJ&q=ss+columbia |title=Menlo Park reminiscences, Volume 2 |publisher=Edison's institute |year=1936 |page=564 |access-date=18 October 2020 |archive-date=3 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103065132/https://books.google.com/books?id=FSNVAAAAMAAJ&q=ss+columbia |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Dalton">{{cite book |last=Dalton |first=Anthony |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LOQ67VeU3WwC&pg=PA63 |title=A Long, Dangerous Coastline: Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California |publisher=Heritage House Publishing Company |year=2011 |page=63 |isbn=9781926936116 |access-date=18 October 2016 |archive-date=22 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522055052/https://books.google.com/books?id=LOQ67VeU3WwC&pg=PA63 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Albon Man, a New York lawyer, started [[Electro-Dynamic Light Company]] in 1878 to exploit his patents and those of [[William E. Sawyer|William Sawyer]].<ref name=EE1890>{{cite book |title=Electrical Engineer, Volume 10 |chapter=Reports of Companies |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GbNNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA72 |date=16 July 1890 |publisher=Electrical Engineer |quote=The Consolidated Company was the successor of the Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York, the first company organized in the United States for the manufacture and sale of electric incandescent lamps, and the owner of a large number of patents of date prior to those upon which rival companies were depending. ... The United States Electric Lighting Company was organized in 1878, a few weeks after the Electro-Dynamic Company |page=72 |access-date=18 October 2016 |archive-date=26 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126140751/https://books.google.com/books?id=GbNNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA72 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=ER1890>{{cite book |title=Electrical Review, Volume 16 |chapter=Electric Light News |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wdVFAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA9 |date=19 July 1890 |publisher=Delano |quote=The United States Electric Lighting Company was organized in 1878, a few weeks after the Electro-Dynamic Light Company |page=9 |access-date=18 October 2016 |archive-date=27 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170127181438/https://books.google.com/books?id=wdVFAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA9 |url-status=live }}</ref> Weeks later the [[United States Electric Lighting Company]] was organized.<ref name=EE1890/><ref name=ER1890/><ref name=WE1890>{{cite book |title=Western Electrician |chapter=The Westinghouse Electric Company |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m3oxAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA36 |date=19 July 1890 |publisher=Electrician Publishing Company |quote=The United States Electric Lighting Company was organized in 1878 a few weeks after the Electro-Dynamic company, and was the successor of the oldest company in the United States for the manufacture of electric power apparatus |page=36 |access-date=18 October 2016 |archive-date=27 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170127060947/https://books.google.com/books?id=m3oxAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA36 |url-status=live }}</ref> This company did not make their first commercial installation of incandescent lamps until the fall of 1880, at the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company in New York City, about six months after the Edison incandescent lamps had been installed on the ''Columbia''. [[Hiram S. Maxim]] was the chief engineer at the US Electric Lighting Co.<ref>The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol VI 1896, p. 34</ref> After the great success in the United States, the incandescent light bulb patented by Edison also began to gain widespread popularity in [[Europe]] as well; among other places, the first Edison light bulbs in the [[Nordic countries]] were installed at the weaving hall of the [[Finlayson (company)|Finlayson]]'s textile factory in [[Tampere, Finland]] in March 1882.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://innovationcapital.fi/innovation-story/a-history-of-continuous-change-and-innovation|title=A history of continuous change and innovation|first=Mika|last=Kautonen|work=Smart Tampere Ecosystem|date=18 November 2015|access-date=9 December 2021|archive-date=9 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209035220/http://innovationcapital.fi/innovation-story/a-history-of-continuous-change-and-innovation|url-status=live}}</ref>

On 4 March 1880, just five months after Edison's light bulb, [[Alessandro Cruto]] developed a process to create thin carbon filaments by heating thin platinum filaments in the presence of gaseous [[ethyl alcohol]] to coat them with pure graphite, and then [[Sublimation (phase transition)|sublimating]] the platinum at high temperatures. In 1882 at the Munich Electrical Exhibition in Bavaria, Germany Cruto demonstrated bulbs that were more efficient than Edison's and produced a better, whiter light.<ref>https://ilglobo.com/news/alessandro-crutos-incandescent-light-bulb-33135/ {{dead link|date=February 2022}}</ref>

[[Lewis Latimer]], employed at the time by Edison, developed an improved method of heat-treating carbon filaments which reduced breakage and allowed them to be molded into novel shapes, such as the characteristic "M" shape of Maxim filaments. On 17 January 1882, Latimer received a patent for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of light bulb filaments, which was purchased by the United States Electric Light Company.<ref>{{US patent|252386|U.S. Patent 252, 386 ''Process OF Manufacturing Carbons.'' by Lewis H. Latimer. Application on 19 February 1881}}</ref> Latimer patented other improvements such as a better way of attaching filaments to their wire supports.<ref name="Fouché">Fouché, Rayvon, ''Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson.'') (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 2003, pp. 115–116. {{ISBN|0-8018-7319-3}}</ref>

In Britain, the Edison and Swan companies merged into the [[Edison and Swan United Electric Company]] (later known as Ediswan, and ultimately incorporated into [[Thorn Lighting Ltd]]). Edison was initially against this combination, but Edison was eventually forced to cooperate and the merger was made. Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan's interest in the company. Swan sold his US patent rights to the [[Brush Electric Company]] in June 1882.

[[File:Light bulb.png|thumb|left|upright|{{US patent|0223898}} by [[Thomas Edison]] for an improved electric lamp, 27 January 1880]]
The [[United States Patent and Trademark Office|United States Patent Office]] gave a ruling 8 October 1883, that Edison's patents were based on the prior art of [[William E. Sawyer|William Sawyer]] and were invalid. Litigation continued for a number of years. Eventually on 6 October 1889, a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid.<ref>Consol. Elec. Light Co v. McKeesport Light Co, 40 F. 21 (C.C.W.D. Pa. 1889) aff'd, 159 U.S. 465, 16 S. Ct. 75, 40 L. Ed. 221 (1895).</ref>

In 1893, [[Heinrich Göbel]] claimed he had designed the first incandescent light bulb in 1854, with a thin carbonized [[bamboo]] filament of high resistance, platinum lead-in wires in an all-glass envelope, and a high vacuum. Judges of four courts raised doubts about the alleged Göbel [[anticipation (patent law)|anticipation]], but there was never a decision in a final hearing due to the expiration of Edison's patent. Research work published in 2007 concluded that the story of the Göbel lamps in the 1850s is fictitious.<ref name="roh07">{{cite book |first=Hans-Christian |last=Rohde |title=Die Göbel-Legende – Der Kampf um die Erfindung der Glühlampe |language=de |publisher=zu Klampen |location=Springe |year=2007 |isbn=978-3-86674-006-8 |oclc=85243650}}</ref>

The main difficulty with evacuating the lamps was moisture inside the bulb, which [[Water splitting|split]] when the lamp was lit, with resulting oxygen attacking the filament.<ref name="lamptech">{{cite web|url=http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Documents/IN%20Getters.htm |title=Getters |publisher=Lamptech.co.uk |date= |access-date=2022-08-18}}</ref> In the 1880s, [[phosphoric anhydride]] was used in combination with expensive [[mercury vacuum pump]]s.<ref name="HS1927">{{cite web | url=https://bulbs.2yr.net/history-of-the-incandescent-lamp-chapter4.php | title=2yr.net - Antique & Vintage Light Bulb Collection Museum - History of the Incandescent Lamp - by John W. Howell and Henry Schroeder (1927) Chapter 4: The Vacuum, Getters and the Gas Filled Lamp }}</ref> However, about 1893, Italian inventor {{ill|Arturo Malignani|it}} (1865–1939), who lacked these pumps, discovered that phosphorus vapours did the job of chemically binding the remaining amounts of water and oxygen.<ref name="lamptech" /><ref name="HS1927" /> In 1896 he patented a process of introducing [[red phosphorus]] as the so-called [[getter]]  inside the bulb <ref name="lamptech" />), which allowed obtaining economic bulbs lasting 800 hours; his patent was acquired by Edison in 1898.<ref name="guarnieri 7-1"/>

In 1897, German physicist and chemist [[Walther Nernst]] developed the [[Nernst lamp]], a form of incandescent lamp that used a ceramic [[globar]] and did not require enclosure in a vacuum or inert gas.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Allan |last=Mills |title=The Nernst Lamp. Electrical Conductivity in Non-Metallic Materials |journal=ERittenhouse |volume=24 |issue=1 |date=June 2013 |url=http://www.erittenhouse.org/artitcles/the-nernst-lamp/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130717015135/http://www.erittenhouse.org/artitcles/the-nernst-lamp/ |archive-date=17 July 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Walther Nernst Chronology |url=http://www.nernst.de/chronology.htm |work=nernst.de |access-date=18 January 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150222122341/http://nernst.de/chronology.htm |archive-date=22 February 2015}}</ref> Twice as efficient as carbon filament lamps, Nernst lamps were briefly popular until overtaken by lamps using metal filaments.