Incandescent Electric Lamp
The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, in particular, profoundly changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity.
At a Glance
The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, in particular, profoundly changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity. The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was invented in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. He put together what he knew about electricity with what he knew about gas lights and invented a whole of electrical system.
| Inventor: | Thomas Alva Edison |
| Criteria: | First practical. Modern prototype. Entrepreneur. |
| Birth: | February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio |
| Death: | October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey |
| Nationality: | American |
| Invention: | Electric light bulb on October 18, 1879 |
| Function: | Noun / Electric light bulb / Incandescent lamp |
| Definition: | An electric lamp in which a filament is heated to incandescence by an electric current. Today's incandescent light bulbs use filaments made of tungsten rather than carbon of the 1880's. |
| Patent: | 223,898 (US) issued January 27, 1880 |
Milestones
| 1868 | Edison's first invention was a Vote Recorder |
| 1869 | Printing Telegraph |
| 1869 | Stock Ticker |
| 1872 | Automatic Telegraph |
| 1876 | Electric Pen |
| 1877 | Carbon Telephone Transmitter |
| 1877 | Phonograph |
| 1879 | Dynamo |
| 1878 | Thomas Edison founded the Edison Electric Light Company |
| 1879 | Incandescent Electric Lamp |
| 1880 | 223,898 Thomas Edison 1/27 for Electric Lamp and Manufacturing Process |
| 1881 | Electric Motor |
| 1881 | 238,868 Thomas Edison 3/15 for Manufacture of Carbons for Incandescent Lamps |
| 1881 | 251,540 Thomas Edison 12/27 for Bamboo Carbons Filament for Incandescent Lamps |
| 1883 | he observed the flow of electrons from a heated filament—the so-called "Edison effect" |
| 1886 | Talking Doll |
| 1889 | Edison Electric Light Company consolidated and renamed Edison General Electric Company. |
| 1890 | Edison, Thomson-Houston, and Westinghouse, the "Big 3" of the American lighting industry. |
| 1892 | Edison Electric Light Co. and Thomson-Houston Electric Co. created General Electric Co. |
| 1897 | Projecting Kinetoscope |
| 1900 | Storage Battery |
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