Electric light is one of the famous inventions of 19. The crown of this invention fell to Edison, which made Swan (1828- 19 14) feel a little bitter.
1809, the famous British scientist David invented an arc lamp, which used the arc light between carbon rods to illuminate. He also conducted an illumination experiment with the light generated by the current passing through the platinum wire, but the platinum wire soon burned in the air. After that, some scientists began to study electric lights, among which Swan, an Englishman, made the greatest efforts. He has been engaged in the development of electric lamps for more than 30 years, and has taken a gratifying step in developing tough carbon wires into filaments.
1877, Edison also started the development of electric lights. He tried thousands of kinds of filaments as materials, but all failed. He chose carbon filament as the filament, and inserted it between the two poles of the battery, and the carbon filament lit up, but when it was white, the carbon filament and oxygen in the air were oxidized and broken, and Edison chose refractory alloys such as iridium and platinum as the filament, which soon burned out. 1879, he used platinum wire as the filament and got a 25-watt lamp, but the lamp also burned out quickly.
1 879165438+1October1,Edison saw a report in Scientific American magazine, saying that the swan used carbon filament as a filament and re-developed a carbon filament light bulb. He bent ordinary cotton thread into a hairpin, burned it in a sealed container, carbonized it, cooled it, carefully took it out of the sealed container and put it into a light bulb. When the power was turned on, the light came on. This day is 1879, 10, 2 1. This is the first effective filament in history. It burned for 40 hours and then went out. At the 188 1 Paris Expo, Edison won the honor award, while Swan only won a lower-level gold medal. He felt unspeakable sadness in his heart.
Why didn't the laurel of inventing electric light fall to the swan? Except for Edison's absolute advantages in personnel, funds and equipment, he applied for a patent for every improvement, and by 1883, he obtained 147 electric lamp patents. Swan applied for the first patent for the light bulb 32 years after he made the first carbon filament light bulb. Although it was far ahead all the way, it was left behind by the latecomers at the critical moment of the sprint.
Efforts are valuable, and efforts are equally valuable. Just talk about cultivation, don't ask about harvest, and the fruit will rot on the ground.