Types of lamps and the history of their creation

In 1801, the English physicist Sir Humphry Davy showed that a platinum filament was capable of emitting light. True, the sample evaporated too quickly, it was not possible to extract benefit from the process. Today we talk about the types of lamps and the history of creation. Run through foreign resources. We hope that an overview about the history and types of lighting lamps will be interesting.

Incandescent bulbs

Incandescent bulbs were the first in the history of steel. Until Thomas Alva Edison, the inventors attempted to get working appliances, following in the footsteps of the Humphrey Davy cheese, but it was difficult to call successful actions. The difficulty was in the instantaneous oxidation of the filament material with atmospheric oxygen. It was much easier with lightning. In 1809, Sir Humphrey Davy received a discharge between two carbon rods. Such a prototype of discharge lamps was used recently, and successfully. The invention, demonstrated in 1810 by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, was called the arc lamp.

light bulb. Something like an electric torch made by James Boemen Lindsay in 1835.He studied other solutions, in addition there was little information about the activities of the inventor, but recorded his attempts to read the book from a long distance. Lindsay achieved results by lighting the book. Then the attention of the science luminaries rushed to the wireless telegraph, where dots and dashes were fixed by the duration of the glow. The distance was amazing for those times, and the speed was instant.

Five years later, the benefits of electricity were to the liking of the British scientist Varren de la Roux, who guessed to put a platinum thread in a vacuum flask. His invention was based on the conjecture that the high melting point of platinum means: the coil does not just evaporate, but burns, oxidizes. Therefore, it is required to isolate the thread from oxygen. An almost incandescent light bulb was created, except for the absence of a threaded cap. The commercial effect of using platinum as a source of lighting clearly did not promise to become transcendental.

In 1841, the design of the first incandescent bulbs changed slightly. In the brainchild of Frederick de Molain, there was a hybrid between the inventions of Sir Humphrey Davy: small coal chips called to glow between two platinum electrodes enclosed in a vacuum flask. There are attempts to reduce the cost of the device light bulbs. Until finally, in 1845, the brilliant American John Wellington did not guess to make the threads completely carbon( which is used today in carbon heaters).The invention did not add to the scientist years of life, the work on the creation of glowers was continued by Robert Nudi, who demonstrated the novelties, most of which are now available for viewing at the Museum of the Castle of Blois.

Our compatriot Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin in 1872 invented the incandescent light bulb and two years later took a patent on the device. Quickly making sure that the iron and carbon rods give little in this regard, the Russian inventor continued his research. The fate was such that Lodygin left Russia, due to the government's persecution of the revolutionary movement. From 1883 on a par with other areas engaged in the production of the first incandescent lamps in France. He worked on things from the field of construction and technology. Lodygin first came up with the idea to use refractory metals( tungsten, chrome, titanium) as a filament, which still work today.

As a result, patents were overbought by the American General Electric Corporation. And the inventor of the light bulb returned to Russia with a pile of drawings and inventions. He worked as a teacher, but after the revolution he emigrated to the USA, where he died. Meanwhile, the world did not stand still. Do not think that the first electric light bulb came to light by the forces of a single scientist. Many people worked in this direction. For example, since 1854, Heinrich Goebel worked on carbonated bamboo threads. A bottle with exhausted air was used as a bulb for the lamp. The mentioned person is considered the inventor of the first digestible version of the lamp.

Who actually invented the incandescent light bulb

Many historians believe that the pros and cons of incandescent lamps can be considered seriously, starting with the work of Joseph Wilson Swan. In 1850, an English physicist began working on( !) Paper filaments covered with coal dust. By 1860, the first practical device had matured, the disadvantages include:

1. High quality requirements for creating a vacuum in the bulb of the lamp.
2. Short life time of the device.
3. Unsustainable energy consumption.

Please note that among the disadvantages of incandescent bulbs there is no high price. Fortunately, in the mid-70s, new improved vacuum pumps appeared, which allowed Swan to continue working. In 1878, the scientist demonstrates his own work at the lectures in Newcastle, but takes a patent for a new device of light bulbs only two years later - in 1880.The main innovation was the complete removal of oxygen from the flask, the thread was heated until white, not burning. The coil showed low resistance, extremely thick copper wires were required to power the device.

So, Swan solved the task of arranging the lighting by applying glow lamps. In the end, he proposed to take cotton as a basis for the thread( instead of paper).Swan's house in Low Fell was the first lit in the world with electricity. Historians mark Joseph for being the first in the commercial production of incandescent bulbs, which led to further interest in the subject of academia and the mass strata of society. The Savoy Theater of Art in Westminster became the first public institution where an electric generator( 88 kW) was used to illuminate the hall.1,200 incandescent bulbs were used, made according to the design proposed by Swan.

As eyewitnesses noted, the advantage of the new technique was the absence of the need to burn gas. Oxygen has ceased to be spent, and heat it is allocated much less. In addition, observers noticed the relative fire safety of devices. To demonstrate this quality, the incandescent light bulb was smashed( right in the chandelier) during the performance, and on December 29, 1881, the Times noted the described method of lighting more promising than gas horns. Incandescent bulbs quickly gained popularity in the navy and mines, where, for obvious reasons, the use of burning was considered unprofitable. Historians have noted the complete independence of Swan’s studies from Edison’s studies.

. In parallel, a Canadian patent for incandescent bulbs was taken by Henry Woodward. His products differed in the special shape of the flask and were filled with inert nitrogen. This greatly reduced the strength requirements of the glass part of the incandescent bulb. The commercial use of the invention of Henry Woodward is not included. However, they were noticed by Edison, who bought a Canadian patent for $ 5,000.To find the money, Edison took the grand, telling the press that he had already invented new incandescent light bulbs, and now he is simply looking for funds to produce.

The first Edison test on the carbon fiber lasted 13.5 hours. Already by 1880, the inventor takes a patent for the incandescent bulb and a bamboo thread that can work 100 times longer. It was Edison who understood that the thread needed to be made of refractory metals with high resistance in order to reduce the supply current. The 110 V operating voltage recommended by Edison is still used in the USA today. The US patent number 223898 described a number of forms to create a thread, eventually used bamboo, covered with coal dust. Here are the possible options, as described by Edison:

• Cotton.
• Flax.
• Paper.
• Wood splint pins.

I wonder why it was proposed to use exotic materials as the filament. And electrodes for the supply of electricity used platinum. In modern times, the incandescent bulb would have cost a fortune. The reason is simple - the resistance of the thread was already small, and metals with high resistance at that time were not used in the course. The new patent( 1883), with which difficulties arose in negotiating, used carbon as a spiral. In the end, in order to avoid conflicts with Swan, Edison proposed the latter to create Ediswan to market products in the UK.

The first metal spiral for incandescent bulbs made of osmium was patented by Austrian scientist Karl Auer von Welsbach. The working version of the device came out in 1898.In 1897, a lamp with ceramic globar was introduced by the German chemist Walter Nernst. More effectively than carbon one twice, it turned out to be crowded out from the counters following the incandescent filament bulbs with metal thread. In the course of brief attempts, one after another, the recipes were issued to cover the carbon threads with a layer of conductor, then tungsten appeared, which is still in use.

Discharge lamps

At one time, incandescent lamps were filled with bromine or iodine compounds to prevent the coil from burning. Gas discharge are based fundamentally on other laws of physics. It is curious that the effect of the glow of the mercury barometer was noticed as early as 1675 by the French astronomer Jean Picard. Thirty years later, the first version of a discharge lamp was demonstrated by Francis Hoxby. The idea was to pump a small amount of mercury into a glass ball charged with static electricity after vacuuming. Light enough for reading.

While our compatriot Vasily Petrov described the phenomenon of an electric arc, Sir Humphrey Davy in 1802 showed coal rods to the Royal Institute. Further research in the field of low-pressure gas-discharge lamps was carried out by Heinrich Geisler, who in 1857 created artistic light sources of different shades based on gas filler. Vacuum is needed to facilitate the ionization process. Argon, neon, mercury vapor and air were used as the discharge medium.

Electronic diodes, triodes, etc. became bright descendants of Heusler's lamps. During the experiments with gas-discharge lamps, Johann Gittorf noticed that the movement of carriers is formed in full vacuum. Thus was born the knowledge of cathode rays produced by electrons. Sources in fluorescent fluorescent lamps, where mercury vapors emit in the infrared range, and the visible spectrum is obtained by pumping energy from the phosphor, have been further developed.

Background The specified types of electric lamps are taken hundreds of years ago. For a long time, people noticed that certain rocks are twinkling due to unknown reasons. For the first time the phenomenon is described by Sir George Stoke on the example of fluorite. Polar described varieties of light bulbs acquired, having excellent technical characteristics, for example, low energy consumption. And the drawbacks remained obvious until recently: large sizes, the need for a driver( power supply).