180 1 year, the British chemist David electrified the platinum wire to glow. 18 1 year, he invented the electric candle, which was illuminated by an arc between two carbon rods. 1854, Henry Goebbels used carbonized bamboo filaments to glow under a vacuum glass bottle. His invention seems to be the first one today.
1850, the Englishman Joseph Wilson Swan began to study electric lights. 1878, he obtained a British patent for a light bulb powered by carbon wire under vacuum and started to set up a company in Britain to install electric lights in every household.
1874, two electrical technicians in Canada applied for a patent for electric light. They filled the glass bulb with nitrogen to make the charged carbon rod glow. But they didn't have enough financial resources to continue developing this invention, so they sold the patent to Edison at 1875.
Edison tried to improve the filament after buying the patent. 1879, he changed to carbon filament to make a light bulb, which successfully lasted 13 hours. By 1880, the carbonized bamboo filament light bulb he made had successfully lasted in the laboratory for 1200 hours. But in Britain, Swan accused Edison of patent infringement. And won the case. Edison's electric light company in England was forced to let Swan join as a partner. But later, Swan sold his rights and patents to Edison. In America, Edison's patent has also been challenged. The United States Patent Office ruled that his invention had a criminal record and was invalid. Finally, after years of litigation, Edison obtained the patent right of carbon filament incandescent lamp.
Edison's greatest discovery was that tungsten was used as the filament instead of carbon. Later, in 1906, General Electric invented a method for manufacturing tungsten wires for electric lamps. Finally, the method of manufacturing tungsten wire at low price was solved, and the tungsten wire bulb has been used ever since.
The light bulb invented by Edison usually refers to the durable light bulb rather than the earliest light bulb.