508 Words Essay on Light Bulb
To say that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb is an overstatement. A more accurate view is that he perfected a practical light bulb and that his real aim and achievement was the invention of an electrical system to produce and distribute electrical power.
In 1878 the best source of lighting was gas. Unfortunately it was far from convenient. It was dirty, unhealthy, uncomfortable and dangerous. When gas burned it created soot.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In 1878 Edison decided to throw the bulk of his attention and resources into the perfection of the light bulb. Edison was not an inventor interested in theory he used a painstaking trial and perused a wrong method. He literally tested thousands of different substances as filaments and sent men all over the world to try to find better materials. The last feature of his work was that he did not work alone.
He was not a solitary inventor working in his basement. He had a large staff and organization to carry out his experiments. There were several other men with prominent roles in the perfection of the light bulb: Charles Batchelor, John Kruesi, Francis Jehl and Frances Upton. To a large degree these men were willing to contribute not only their work, but also creative ideas to Edison for little or no credit.
For a brief period the material of choice for the filament was carbon. But because the quality of the vacuums that could be created was so poor carbon filaments disintegrated quickly. Edison switched to the more resilient material platinum. In 1879, he obtained an improved vacuum pump called the Springer vacuum, and it proved to be the catalyst for a breakthrough.
Edison switched back to experiments with carbon filaments because he thought it would be more fruitful and because platinum was expensive. He tested carbon source after carbon source and on October 21 and 22, he carbonised a piece of Clark’s sewing thread to form a filament.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It burnt 13.5 hours – a huge breakthrough. Soon by changing the shape of the filament to a horseshoe it burned for over 100 hours. Edison and his colleagues had invented a practical light bulb and by doing so they opened up the way for the establishment of the electrical power system.
It was this power system that became Edison’s real achievement. It begets a huge new industry that would radically affect everyone.
This was because once a house or business had electricity installed for lighting an almost endless amount of other items could be developed and sold: electric irons, fans, electric motors, refrigerators and eventually items like air conditioners and computers. There were dozens of new items that had to be invented or improved in order to produce and distribute electricity.
Edison ended up inventing dozens of new devices used to produce and distribute electricity. Items like screw top sockets, meters, insulation, fuses, switches, junction boxes, indicator panels and better dynamos. The improvement of die dynamo in itself was a significant achievement. The dynamo was the device the turned mechanical energy into electrical energy.