The history of the electric light bulb began in 1802 in St. Petersburg. It was then that physics professor Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov passed an electric current through two rods of charcoal. The flames arced between them. Previously unknown properties of electricity were discovered - the ability to give people bright light and heat. Oddly enough, it was this possibility that interested the scientist least of all. He mainly drew attention to the temperature of the flame, so high that metals melt in it. After 80 years, another Russian scientist Benardos used this property for welding metals.
Petrov's discovery went unnoticed. Ten years later, the electric arc was rediscovered by the Englishman Humphry Davy. But there were still 60 years before the appearance of the electric lamp.
In order to use an electric arc for lighting, it was necessary to solve three problems.
Firstly, the ends of the coals, between which the arc flashed, quickly burned out in its flame. The distance between them increased, and the arc went out. Therefore, it was necessary to find a way to maintain the flame not for several minutes, but for hundreds of hours, that is, to create an electric lamp convenient for use. This turned out to be the most difficult.
Secondly, a reliable and economical current source was needed. What was needed was a machine that could generate cheap electric current. The galvanic batteries that existed at that time were bulky, and a lot of expensive zinc was required for their manufacture.
And finally, thirdly, a way was needed to "split electrical energy", in other words, to use the current generated by the machine for several lamps installed in different places.
Thanks to the discovery by Michael Faraday of the effect of the appearance of an electric current in an insulated wire when it moves in a magnetic field, the first electric current generators, dynamos, were built.
The main contribution to the creation of the electric light bulb was made by three people, ironically born in the same 1847. These were Russian engineers Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin and American Thomas Alva Edison.
A. N. Lodygin graduated from a military school, but then resigned and entered St. Petersburg University. There he began work on an aircraft project. In Russia, he did not have the opportunity to build his invention, and the 23-year-old Lodygin leaves in 1870 for France. Then there was a Franco-Prussian war, and the young inventor wanted to adapt his offspring for military needs. The French government accepted his proposal, and the construction of an apparatus resembling a modern helicopter began. But France lost the war, and work was stopped. Lodygin himself, while working on his invention, faced the problem of lighting it at night. This problem fascinated him so much that after returning to Russia, Lodygin completely switched to solving it.
Lodygin began experiments with an electric arc, but very quickly abandoned them, as he saw that the hot ends of the carbon rods shine brighter than the arc itself. The inventor came to the conclusion that the arc was not needed, and began experiments with various materials, glowing them with current. Experiments with wires made of various metals did not give anything - the wire glowed for only a few minutes, then burned out. Then Lodygin returned to coal, which was used to produce an electric arc. But he did not take thick carbon rods, but thin ones. The carbon rod was placed between two copper holders in a glass ball, and an electric current was passed through it. The coal gave off a rather bright light, though yellowish. The carbon rod held for about half an hour.
In order for the rod not to burn out, Lodygin put two rods in the lamp. At first, only one glowed and quickly burned out, absorbing all the oxygen in the lamp, after which the second one began to glow. Since there was very little oxygen left, it shone for about two hours. Now it was necessary to pump out the air from the bulb and prevent it from seeping inside. To do this, the lower end of the lamp was immersed in an oil bath, through which wires went from the current source to the lamp. Soon this method had to be abandoned, a light bulb was made in which it was possible to change the carbon rods after combustion. But the inconvenience arose due to the need to pump out air.
Lodygin created the "Electric Lighting Partnership Lodygin and Company". In the spring of 1873, in a remote area of St. Petersburg, Sands, a demonstration of incandescent lamps of the Lodygin system took place. In two street lamps, kerosene lamps were replaced with electric ones. Many brought newspapers with them to compare the distance at which they could be read under kerosene and electric lighting. Later, Lodygin's lamps illuminated the window of Floran's lingerie store.
In the summer of 1873, the Lodygin and Company Association organized an evening where a lantern was shown to illuminate the room, a signal lantern for railways, an underwater lantern, and a street lantern. Each lantern could be lit and extinguished separately from the others.
The Academy of Sciences awarded Lodygin the Lomonosov Prize for the fact that his invention leads to "useful, important and new practical applications."
Recognition of the importance of his work inspired Lodygin. He improved his light bulb, and his workshop produced more and more of its varieties. But the "Partnership" for the manufacture and sale of Lodygin's light bulbs was founded before they could make a new light bulb that would compete with the old ways of lighting. The workshop was closed, the "Partnership" broke up, Lodygin's light bulbs were forgotten for a while. A. the inventor himself entered the factory as a mechanic.
At the same time, Yablochkov developed his own lamp design. While working on the Kursk railway, Pavel Nikolaevich proposed to install an electric lantern on the locomotive of the train of Alexander II to illuminate the track. It consisted of two coal rods, between which an electric arc flashed. As the rods burned, they were pulled together by a mechanical regulator. The current was provided by a galvanic battery. The young inventor had to spend two nights on the locomotive, constantly correcting the regulator.
Yablochkov left the service and opened a workshop for physical instruments in Moscow. But the workshop suffered losses, and he had to go abroad, to Paris. There he went to work in the workshop of Breguet and resumed work on the creation of an electric lamp. He was occupied with one problem: how to build a lamp that does not need a regulator. The solution turned out to be simple: instead of placing the rods one against the other, they had to be placed in parallel, separated by a layer of a refractory substance that does not conduct electric current. Then the coals will burn evenly, and the gasket will play the same role as the wax in the candle. For the layer between the electrodes, Yablochkov chose kaolin, the white clay from which porcelain is made.
A month after the appearance of this brilliant idea, the lamp was designed, and Yablochkov received a patent for it. This was in 1876. He placed his electric candle in a glass bowl. A simple device was used to ignite it: the rods were connected from above with a thin carbon thread. When a current was passed into the lamp, the filament became hot, quickly burned out, and an arc flashed between the rods.
The invention was a huge success. Shops, theaters, the streets of Paris were lit up with "Yablochkov's candles". In London, they illuminated the Thames embankment and ship docks. Yablochkov became one of the most popular people in Paris. Newspapers called his invention "Russian light".
"Russian Light" was not successful only in the homeland of the inventor in Russia. French inventors offered Yablochkov to buy from him the right to make his candles for all countries. Before agreeing, Yablochkov offered his patent to the Russian military ministry for free. There was no answer. And then the inventor agreed to take a million francs from the French. After the grandiose success of the Yablochkov candle at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, which was visited by many Russians, they became interested in it in Russia as well. One of the Grand Dukes, having visited the exhibition, promised Yablochkov help in organizing the production of his lamps in Russia. For the sake of the opportunity to work at home, the inventor, having returned a million francs, bought the right to manufacture his candles and left for St. Petersburg.
There, the Yablochkov and Company society was formed, which built an electrical apparatus factory and, with it, a laboratory for the inventor. For the widespread use of electric lighting, Yablochkov needed to solve all three problems mentioned above.
For this, there were already all the prerequisites. Inventors proposed many designs of machines that generated electric current. Yablochkov also created his own generator. In addition, he found a way to feed many lamps with current, so his factory offered not only "candles", but also took over the entire electric lighting device. Yablochkov illuminated the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg, the square in front of the theater and some factories.
Between Yablochkov and Lodygin there was a long creative dispute about the ways of developing electric lighting. Yablochkov believed that the rejection of the arc was Lodygin's mistake and incandescent bulbs could not be durable and economical. Lodygin, in turn, stubbornly improved the incandescent light bulb.
The disadvantage of Yablochkov's candle was the too strong light that she gave - at least 300 candles. At the same time, she radiated so much heat that it was impossible to breathe in a small room.
Therefore, Yablochkov's candles were used to illuminate the streets and large premises: theaters, factory floors, seaports.
In turn, incandescent bulbs did not heat up the room in any noticeable way. They could be made in any strength. Despite differences in views, Yablochkov and Lodygin treated each other with respect, worked together in a scientific society, and organized the Electricity magazine. At the Yablochkov plant, Lodygin's light bulbs were also made, which by that time had made improvements to his invention: instead of carbon rods, he began to use carbon filaments. The new light bulb consumed less current and lasted several hundred hours.
For about two years, the Yablochkov plant was inundated with orders, and electric lighting appeared in many Russian cities. Then the number of orders declined, and the plant began to decline. The inventor went bankrupt, was forced to leave for Paris again. There he went to work in the same society that he founded and to which he returned a million francs.
At the Paris exhibition in 1881, Yablochkov's candle was recognized as the best way of electric lighting. But they began to be used less and less, and soon the inventor himself lost interest in them.
After the Yablochkov plant closed, Lodygin failed to establish a wide production of his lamps in Russia. He went first to Paris, then to America. He learned that there the light bulb he invented was named after Edison. But the Russian engineer did not begin to prove his priority, but continued to work on improving his invention.
Speaking about Edison's contribution to the development of the electric light bulb, it should be noted that before creating his light bulb, Lodygin's light bulb was in his hands. Since the electric light had to compete with the gas burner, Edison studied the gas industry in detail. He developed a plan for a central power plant and a scheme for supplying electricity to houses and factories. Then, having calculated the cost of materials and electricity, he determined the price of the lamp at 40 cents. After that, Edison began work on a lamp with a carbon filament placed in a glass ball, from which the air was pumped out. He found a way to pump air out of a cylinder better than other inventors could. But the main thing was to find a material for the carbon filament that would provide a long service life. To do this, he tried about six thousand plants from around the world. In the end, he settled on one of the types of bamboo.
After that, advertising took off. Newspapers reported that Edison's homestead, Menlo Park, would be illuminated with electric light bulbs. Seven hundred light bulbs made a stunning impression on numerous visitors. Edison had to work hard on additional inventions - generators, cables. He also worked to lower the price of the light bulb and stopped only when it cost 22 cents. Despite all this, Edison received a patent not for the invention of a light bulb, but only for an improvement, since priority remained with Lodygin.
Lodygin himself in America returned to experiments with a thread of refractory metals. He found the most suitable material for the thread, which is still used today - tungsten. Tungsten filament produces bright white light, requires much less current than carbon filament, and can last for thousands of hours.
Arc lamps were not forgotten either. They are used where a light source of many thousands of candles is needed: in searchlights, beacons, on film sets. Moreover, they are made not according to the Yablochkov method, but according to the scheme he rejected - with a regulator that brings the carbon rods together.
In the 20th century, incandescent bulbs had a competitor - gas lamps, or fluorescent lamps. They are filled with gas and give light without heating up. First, colored gas lamps appeared. Metal plates were melted into the glass tube at both ends - electrodes, to which current was supplied. The tube was filled with gas or metal vapors. Under the influence of current, the gas began to glow. Argon is blue, neon is red, mercury is purple, and sodium vapor is yellow. These lamps have been used in advertising.
Later, lamps were created, the light of which approaches the sun. Their basis is ultraviolet rays. Their advantage is less current consumption compared to incandescent lamps.
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Answers to this seemingly simple question can be heard different. The Americans will no doubt insist that it was Edison. The English will say that this is their compatriot Swann. The French may remember the "Russian light" inventor Yablochkov, who began lighting the streets and squares of Paris in 1877. Someone will name another Russian inventor - Lodygin. There will likely be other answers. So who is right? Yes, perhaps everything. History of the light bulb is a whole chain of discoveries and inventions made by different people at different times.
Before moving on to the chronology of the invention of the light bulb, I would like to note what we mean by the term "light bulb". First of all, it is a light source, a device, a device in which electrical energy is converted into light energy. But the conversion methods can be different. In the 19th century, several of these methods were known. Therefore, already then several types of electric lamps appeared: arc, incandescent and gas-discharge. An electric lamp is a technical system, i.e. a set of individual elements necessary to perform the main useful function - lighting.
The history of the appearance and development of the electric lamp is inseparable from the history of electrical engineering, which begins with the discovery of electric current in the 18th century. Later, in the 19th century, a wave of discoveries related to electricity swept the world. It was like a chain reaction, when one discovery opened the way for the next. Electrical engineering from the section of physics stood out as an independent science, on the development of which a whole galaxy of scientists and inventors worked: the Frenchman Andre-Marie Ampere (French Andre Marie Ampere), the Germans Georg Ohm (German Georg Simon Ohm) and Heinrich Hertz (German Heinrich Rudolf Hertz), Englishmen Michael Faraday and James Maxwell and others.
The amazing 19th century, which laid the foundations for the scientific and technological revolution that so changed the world, began with the invention of a chemical current source (voltaic column). With this extremely important invention, the Italian scientist A. Volta met the new year 1800. And already in 1801, Vasily Petrov, a professor at the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy, managed to persuade the authorities to purchase for their physics office the most powerful electric battery for those times, consisting of 4200 pairs of galvanic cells. Conducting experiments with this battery, Petrov in 1802 discovered an electric arc - a bright discharge that occurs between carbon rods-electrodes brought together at a certain distance. He also suggested using an arc for lighting.
However, in the practical implementation of this idea, many difficulties arose. Experiments have shown that the arc burns brightly and steadily only at a certain distance between the electrodes. And during the burning of the arc, the carbon electrodes gradually burn out, increasing the arc gap. A regulator mechanism was required to maintain a constant distance between the electrodes.
Inventors have come up with different solutions. But they all had the disadvantage that it was impossible to include several lamps in one circuit. I had to use a separate power source for each lamp. This problem was solved in 1856 by the inventor A.I. Shpakovsky, who created a lighting installation with eleven arc lamps equipped with original regulators. This installation illuminated Red Square in Moscow during the coronation of Alexander II.
In 1869, another Russian inventor, V.I. Chikolev, applied a differential regulator to an arc lamp and used it in powerful marine searchlights. Such regulators are still used in large projector installations. Unfortunately, all arc burners have been unreliable and expensive.
The decisive role in the transition from experiments on electricity to mass electric lighting was played by the Russian electrical engineer Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. Yablochkov began his work in Russia, organizing a workshop of physical instruments in 1875 in St. Petersburg. In the same year, he came up with the idea to create a simple and reliable arc lamp. However, the financial collapse of the enterprise forced Yablochkov to leave for Paris in 1876, where he continued his work on the arc lamp in the famous Breguet watch and precision instrument manufacturer.
The problem was still the same - a regulator was needed. The idea came as always unexpectedly. The case helped. Thinking hard about this problem, Yablochkov went to have a bite to eat in a small Parisian cafe. The waiter came. Yablochkov, continuing to think about his own, mechanically watched how he puts the dish, puts the spoon, fork, knife ... And suddenly ... Yablochkov abruptly got up from the table and went to the exit. He hurried to his studio. Solution found! Simple and reliable! It came to him as soon as he looked at the cutlery lying next to each other, parallel to each other.
Yes, this is how carbon electrodes should be placed in the lamp - not horizontally, as in all previous designs, but in parallel (!). Then both will burn out exactly the same, and the distance between them will always be constant. And no complex regulators are needed.
The Parisian waiter did not even suspect that he had become, as it were, a co-author of the invention. But who knows, if he hadn’t put a knife and a spoon so carefully in front of Yablochkov, maybe a lightning-fast guess would not have dawned on the inventor. True, the "hint" of the waiter found fertile ground. After all, Yablochkov was looking for his solution even at the cafe table, waiting for the order. By the way, this is an excellent example of the use of associative thinking in solving a complex technical problem. On the other hand, this case is an example of solving a technical problem, when an ideal device (in this case, a regulator) is something that does not actually exist, but functions are performed.
Of course, this was only an idea, and not a complete solution to the problem - creating an inexpensive and reliable lamp. It took a lot of work to get there. First of all, with the parallel arrangement of the electrodes, the arc can burn not only at the ends of the electrodes, but also along their entire length, and most likely, it will roll down to their base - to the current-carrying clamps. This problem was solved by filling the space between the electrodes with an insulator, which gradually burned out along with the electrodes.
The composition of this insulator still needed to be selected, which was done by using clay (kaolin) for this. How to light a lamp? Then, at the top, between the electrodes, a thin carbon jumper was placed, which burned out at the moment of switching on, setting fire to the arc. There was still the problem of uneven combustion of the electrodes associated with the polarity of the current. Because the "+" electrode burned out faster, it initially had to be made thicker. Another, ingenious, solution to this problem was the use of alternating current.
The design of the arc lamp turned out to be simple: two carbon rods separated by an insulating layer of kaolin and mounted on a simple stand resembling a candlestick. The electrodes burned evenly, and the lamp gave a bright light, and for quite a long time. Such an "electric candle" was easy to make and cheap.
In 1876, the Russian inventor presented his invention at the London Exhibition. And a year later, the enterprising Frenchman Deneuruz achieved the establishment of a joint-stock company "Society for the Study of Electric Lighting Using Yablochkov's Methods". Yablochkov's lamps appeared in the most visited places in Paris, on the street - Avenue de l'Opera and Opera Square, as well as in the Louvre store, dim gas and liquid lighting replaced frosted balls that glowed with white, soft light. The triumphal procession "La lumiere russe "(Russian world) around the world. In two years, Yablochkov's candle conquered the entire Old World, spreading in the East to the palaces of the Persian Shah and the King of Cambodia.
Rice. 1. Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov and his candle.
In 1876-77, several French patents were obtained, both for the design of the light bulb itself and for their power systems. Production was put on an industrial basis. A small factory in Paris produced over 8,000 candles a day and several dozen electric generators a month. However, this prosperity soon came to an end. The Yablochkov candle began to be gradually replaced by a cheaper and more durable incandescent lamp.
It is generally accepted that the inventor of the incandescent lamp is the famous American inventor Thomas Alva Edison. On December 21, 1879, an article appeared in the New York Herald newspaper about T.A. Edison's new invention - "Edison's light" (Edison light), about an incandescent lamp with a carbon filament. A few days later, on January 1, 1880, 3,000 people attended a demonstration of electric lighting for houses and streets in Menlo Park (USA), and on January 27 of the same year, they received US patent No. 223898 "Electric-Lamp" (see Fig. 2.). But in reality, the story of this patent and the incandescent lamp is much more complicated and interesting.
Rice. 2. Thomas A. Edison patent for the electric lamp
The first experiments with heating conductors with electric current were carried out at the beginning of the 19th century by the English scientist Humphry Davy. One of the first attempts to apply the incandescence of conductors with current, specifically for the purpose of lighting, was carried out in 1844 by the engineer de Moleyn, who heated a platinum wire placed inside a glass ball. These experiments did not bring the desired results, because. platinum wire melted too quickly.
In 1845, in London, King replaced platinum with sticks of coal and received a patent for "The use of incandescent metal and carbon conductors for lighting."
In 1954, 25 years before Edison, the German watchmaker Heinrich Goebel introduced in New York the first practical incandescent lamps with carbon filaments with a burning time of about 200 hours. As a thread, he used a charred bamboo thread 0.2 mm thick, placed in a vacuum. Instead of a flask, Goebel, for reasons of economy, first used bottles of cologne, and later - glass tubes. He created a vacuum in a glass flask by filling and pouring mercury, that is, using the method used in the manufacture of barometers.
Goebel used the created lamps to illuminate his watch shop. To improve his financial situation, he traveled around New York in a wheelchair and invited everyone to look at the stars through a telescope. The carriage, at the same time, was decorated with his light bulbs. Thus, Goebel became the first person to use light for advertising purposes. Due to lack of money and connections, the German emigrant was unable to obtain a patent for his carbon filament lamp and his invention was quickly forgotten.
Since 1872, Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin began experiments in electric lighting in St. Petersburg. In his first lamps, a thin stick of coal was sandwiched between massive copper rods located in a hermetically sealed glass bowl. Despite the imperfection of the lamp in the same year, the banker Kozlov, in partnership with Lodygin, founded a society to exploit this invention. The Academy of Sciences awarded Lodygin the Lomonosov Prize of 1,000 rubles.
The incandescent lamps with a carbon rod built by Lodygin in 1874 were used to illuminate the St. Petersburg Admiralty. In 1875, Kohn became the head of the partnership, releasing under his own name an improved Lodygin lamp designed by V.F. Didrikhson. In this lamp, the coals were placed in a vacuum, and the burned-out coal was automatically replaced by another. In 1875, Florent's linen store in St. Petersburg was illuminated with three such lamps for two months, and also, at the suggestion of P. Struve, caissons were illuminated under water during the construction of the Alexander Bridge across the Neva.
In 1875, Didrichson began to make coals from wood by charring wooden cylinders without air in graphite crucibles covered with coal powder. In 1876, after Cohn's death, the partnership broke up. Further improvement of the lamp was made by N.P. Bulygin in 1876. In his lamp, the end of a long piece of coal glowed, which automatically advanced as its end burned. The design of the lamps turned out to be difficult and low-tech to manufacture, and therefore not cheap, although it was constantly being improved.
At the end of the 70s of the same century, ships for Russia were built at one of the North American shipyards, and when the time came to receive them, Lieutenant of the Russian fleet A.N. Khotinsky went there. He took with him several Lodygin incandescent lamps. The invention was already patented in France, Russia, Belgium, Austria and Great Britain. He showed Russian lamps to an inventor named Thomas Edison, who at the time was also working on the problem of electric lighting.
Now it is difficult to establish how much the described circumstance influenced Edison's invention. However, in the end, thanks to his work, a qualitative leap was made in the improvement of the incandescent lamp. Edison did not make any revolutionary changes to Lodygin's light bulb. His lamp was a glass flask with a carbon filament, from which air was pumped out, however, much more thoroughly than Lodygin's. But the merit of Edison, first of all, is that he invented and created a super-system for this lamp and put its production on stream, which led to a strong reduction in cost. He invented a screw base for a lamp and a cartridge for it, invented fuses, switches, and the first energy meter. It was with the Edison light bulb that electric lighting became really massive, coming into the homes of ordinary people.
Edison's approach to solving the problem of finding material for the filament deserves special attention. He simply went by sorting through all the substances and materials available to him (trial and error method). Edison tried 6,000 substances containing carbon, from ordinary charcoal-coated sewing thread to food and resin. The best was bamboo, from which the case of the Japanese palm fan was made. This titanic work took about two years.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in England, at about the same time as Lodygin and Edison, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan worked on an electric light bulb. He used a charred cotton thread as a heating element and also pumped air out of the flask. Swann received a British patent for his device in 1878, about a year before Edison. Beginning in 1879, he began installing electric lamps in English homes. Having organized in 1881 the company "The Swan Electric Light Company" began the commercial production of lamps. Swan later teamed up with Edison to commercialize the single brand name "Edi-Swan".
From what has been said, it follows that the electric incandescent lamp at a very early stage had several inventors. Almost all of them had patents. As for the most famous of them, Edison's American patent, it was declared invalid by the court before the expiration of the protection rights. The court found that the incandescent light bulb had been invented by Heinrich Goebel several decades before Edison.
In 1890, Lodygin patented in the USA a lamp with a metal thread made of refractory metals - octium, iridium, rhodium, molybdenum and tungsten. Lodygin's lamps with molybdenum filament were exhibited at the Paris exhibition of 1900 and were such a great success that in 1906 the American company "General Electric" bought this patent from him. The most interesting thing is that the General Electric company was organized by Thomas Edison himself. On this, the correspondence dispute of the great inventors was over.
However, the improvement of the incandescent lamp did not end there. Since 1909, incandescent lamps with a zigzag tungsten filament began to be used, and in 1912-13 lamps filled with nitrogen and inert gases (Ar, Kr) appeared. And finally, the last improvement of the beginning of the 20th century - tungsten filament began to be made, first, in the form of a spiral, and then in the form of a bispiral (a spiral wound from a spiral) and a trispiral. The electric incandescent lamp has finally acquired the form that we are used to seeing.
So who invented the electric light bulb? The names have already been named: Petrov, Shpakovsky, Chikolev, Yablochkov, Edison, Devi, King, Gebel, Lodygin, Swan. It would seem enough. But if you take the "Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron" released at the beginning of the 20th century, then you can read there: Incandescent bulbs are a glass cap from which air is pumped out, and where a carbon or metal filament is placed, heated by an electric current. Carbon thread is obtained by charring bamboo fibers (Edison bulbs), silk, cotton paper (Swan bulbs). From the end of the 1890s. new incandescent bulbs appeared: instead of a carbon filament, a rod pressed from fire-resistant substances is subjected to incandescence: magnesium oxide, thorium, zirconium and yttrium (Nernst light bulb) or a filament of metallic osmium (Auer light bulbs) and tantalum (Bolton and Feuerlein light bulbs).
As you can see, new names appeared - Nernst, Auer, Bolton, Feuerlein. If desired, by conducting a more in-depth search, this list can be further replenished.
It is probably pointless to look for an unambiguous answer to the question "Who invented the electric light bulb". Many inventors have applied their mind, knowledge, labor and talent to this. And this applies only to the types of light bulbs that were developed at the initial stage of the introduction of electric lighting: arc and incandescent.
Even at the very beginning of the development of incandescent lamps, it was noticed that they have a low efficiency, i.e. a very small percentage of the energy of the electric current is converted into light energy. Therefore, the search for other ways of converting electrical energy into light energy continued, and attempts were made to use them in new types of electrical light sources. Discharge lamps became such light sources - devices in which electrical energy is converted into optical radiation when an electric current passes through gases and other substances (for example, mercury).
The first experiments with gas-discharge lamps began almost simultaneously with incandescent lamps. In 1860, the first mercury discharge lamps appeared in England. However, until the beginning of the 20th century, all these experiments were few and remained only experiments, without real practical application.
In the first decade of the 20th century, during the period of mass introduction of electric lighting using incandescent lamps, work on gas-discharge lamps was intensified, which led to a number of inventions and discoveries. In 1901, Peter Cooper Hewitt invents the low pressure mercury lamp. In 1906, the high-pressure mercury lamp was invented. 1910 - discovery of the halogen cycle. The neon lamp was developed by the French physicist Georges Claude in 1911 and quickly found its way into advertising.
In the 1920s and 1940s, work on gas-discharge lamps continued in many countries, which led to the improvement of already known types of lamps and the discovery of new ones. Were developed: low pressure sodium lamp, fluorescent lamp, xenon lamp and others. In the 40s, the mass use of fluorescent lamps for lighting began.
Later, other types of electric lamps were invented: high-pressure sodium; halogen; compact fluorescent; LED light sources and others. Now in the world the total number of types of light sources is about 2000.
Despite such a huge number of types of electric lamps, inventive thought does not stand still. Already known light sources continue to improve. An example of such improvement is the creation in 1983 of compact fluorescent lamps, which became the size of an ordinary incandescent lamp. To turn them on, no special starting equipment is required, they are connected to a standard cartridge for incandescent lamps, and most importantly, with the same amount of light produced, these lamps consume several times less electricity and last several times longer. In recent years, such energy-saving light bulbs have been increasingly used, despite their still higher cost than traditional incandescent lamps.
However, the inventive idea does not stop there. Almost simultaneously, two American firms, Technical Consumer Products (TCP) and O·ZONELite, launched fluorescent energy-saving light bulbs with unexpected new properties. These manufacturers claim that their Fresh2 and O·ZONELite bulbs (both registered trademarks) in addition to lighting the room also eliminate unpleasant odors, purify the air, kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. Isn't it a miracle?
The secret is that the light bulbs are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2), which, when irradiated with fluorescent light, causes a photocatalytic reaction. During this reaction, negatively charged particles - electrons - are released, and positively charged "holes" remain in their place. Due to the combination of pluses and minuses on the surface of the light bulb, the water molecules contained in the air turn into very strong oxidizing agents - hydroxide (HO) radicals, which is why these light bulbs have such unusual and wonderful properties.
Rice. 3. Gas-discharge fluorescent energy-saving lamps Fresh2 and O.ZONELite
As can be seen from Figure 3, these bulbs are even outwardly very similar, and their characteristics are approximately the same. The spiral shape of both lamps is noteworthy. Their creators did this to increase light output, just like their predecessors - the creators of incandescent lamps. Indeed, history moves in a spiral.
It can be concluded that gas-discharge lamps in recent years are gaining more and more popularity even in domestic lighting, replacing incandescent lamps. They consume less energy, are just as easy to operate, and can have a whole host of other great and useful features. The higher price, which still holds back the spread of these lamps, is offset by 8-10 times the service life and 3-5 times the efficiency. And with more mass production, the price will gradually decrease. And if you take into account the ever-increasing energy and environmental problems that cause an increase in the cost of electricity and forcing the introduction of austerity measures, it becomes clear that the prospects for compact fluorescent lamps are very bright. And in the coming years, they have practically no alternative.
But, nothing stands still. Although the last 100 years in the development of lighting technology have passed under the triumphant march of discharge lamps, other types of light sources have appeared. The most promising now seems to be the direction associated with the use of LED light sources, because. they are even more efficient than gas discharge lamps.
The first industrial LEDs appeared in the 1960s. However, low power did not allow them to be used for lighting. They have found application as indicators in various electronic devices, in particular, in microcalculators, watches and other household and scientific instruments.
This would have continued if humanity had not faced the problem of energy conservation. It turned out that today, LEDs have the highest percentage of conversion of electrical energy into light energy. It was impossible not to try to use LEDs as light sources. They found, initially, application in hand-held electric flashlights. In addition, these were flashlights of low power, which did not shine very much, but were miniature, which made it possible to use them even as key chains.
Of course, there are still many problems with LED bulbs. Many of them are being successfully solved, especially since now large capital is investing a lot of money in this direction. And success is already evident - energy-saving LED lamps have already appeared on sale.
Literature
* 1. N.A. Kaptsov, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov 1894-1944. OGIZ. State publishing house of technical and theoretical literature. Moscow, Leningrad, 1944.
* 2. V. Malov, How a Parisian waiter helped a Russian inventor. / Sputnik UT - popular science digest / №4, 2001 / http://jtdigest.narod.ru/dig4_01/offic.htm
* 3. Ya.I. Khurgin, Yes, no, maybe ... - Moscow, Nauka, 1977, p.208
* 4. History of lighting technology. / 2003-2005 CJSC NPK "Daleks" / http://www.daleks.ru
* 5. Fresh2 compact fluorescent light bulbs remove odor while emitting energy efficient light./ http://www.fresh2.com/
* 6. The Bright Future of Indoor Air Quality! /http://www.ozonelite.com/index.html
Pavel Yablochkov and his invention
Exactly 140 years ago, on March 23, 1876, the great Russian inventor Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov patented his famous electric light bulb. Despite the fact that her century turned out to be short-lived, Yablochkov's light bulb became a breakthrough for Russian science and the first invention of a Russian scientist that became widely known abroad.
Let's remember what contribution Yablochkov made to the development of electrical lighting technology and what made him one of the most popular scientists in Europe for a short time.
First arc lamps
In the first half of the 19th century, in the field of artificial lighting, candles that had dominated for centuries were replaced by gas lamps. Their dim light began to illuminate factories and shops, theaters and hotels, and, of course, the streets of night cities. However, with relative ease of use, gas lamps had too little light output, and the lighting gas specially made for them was by no means cheap.
With the discovery of electricity and the invention of the first current sources, it became clear that the future of lighting technology lies precisely in this area. The development of electric lighting initially went in two directions: the design of arc lamps and incandescent lamps. The principle of operation of the former was based on the effect electric arc, well known to everyone in electric welding. From childhood, our parents forbade us to look at its blinding fire, and for good reason - an electric arc is capable of generating an extremely bright source of light.
Arc lamps began to be widely used around the middle of the 19th century, when the French physicist Jean Bernard Foucault suggested using electrodes not from charcoal, but from retort coal, which significantly increased their burning time.
But such arc lamps required attention - as the electrodes burned out, it was necessary to maintain a constant distance between them so that the electric arc would not go out. For this, very cunning mechanisms were used, in particular, the Foucault regulator, invented by the same French inventor. The regulator was very complicated: the mechanism included three springs and required constant attention to itself. All this made arc lamps extremely inconvenient to use. The Russian inventor Pavel Yablochkov undertook to solve this problem.
Yablochkov gets down to business
A native of Saratov, Yablochkov, who showed a craving for invention from childhood, in 1874 got a job as the head of the telegraph service on the Moscow-Kursk railway. By this time, Pavel finally decided to concentrate his creative attention on improving the then existing arc lamps.
The authorities of the railway, who knew about his hobby, offered the novice inventor an interesting business. A government train was supposed to go from Moscow to the Crimea, and to ensure its safety, it was thought to organize night lighting for the driver.
One of the examples of regulating mechanisms in arc lamps of that time
Yablochkov gladly agreed, took with him an arc lamp with a Foucault regulator and, attaching it to the front of the locomotive, was on duty every night near the searchlight all the way to the Crimea. About once an hour and a half he had to change the electrodes, as well as constantly monitor the regulator. Despite the fact that the lighting experience was generally successful, it was clear that this method could not be widely used. Yablochkov decided to try to improve the Foucault regulator in order to simplify the operation of the lamp.
ingenious solution
In 1875, Yablochkov, while conducting an experiment in the laboratory on the electrolysis of table salt, accidentally caused an electric arc to appear between two parallel carbon electrodes. At that moment, Yablochkov came up with the idea of how to improve the design of an arc lamp in such a way that the regulator would no longer be needed at all.
The Yablochkov light bulb (or, as it was customary to call it at that time, the “Yablochkov candle”) was arranged, like everything ingenious, quite simply. The carbon electrodes in it were located vertically and parallel to each other. The ends of the electrodes were connected by a thin metal thread that ignited the arc, and a strip of insulating material was placed between the electrodes. As the coals burned, so did the insulation material.
This is what Yablochkov's candle looked like. The red stripe is the insulating material
In the first models of the lamp, after a power outage, it was not possible to set fire to the same candle, since there was no contact between the two already ignited electrodes. Later, Yablochkov began to mix powders of various metals into the insulating strips, which, when the arc was attenuated, formed a special strip on the end. This allowed unburned coals to be reused.
Burned-out electrodes were immediately replaced with new ones. This had to be done about once every two hours - that was enough for them. Therefore, it was more logical to call Yablochkov's light bulb a candle - it had to be changed even more often than a wax product. But it was hundreds of times brighter.
Worldwide recognition
He completed the creation of his invention Yablochkov in 1876 already in Paris. He had to leave Moscow for financial reasons - being a talented inventor, Yablochkov was a mediocre entrepreneur, which, as a rule, resulted in bankruptcy and debts of all his enterprises.
In Paris, one of the world's centers of science and progress, Yablochkov quickly achieves success with his invention. Having settled down in the studio of Academician Louis Breguet, on March 23, 1876, Yablochkov received a patent, after which his affairs, under the guidance of others, began to go uphill.
In the same year, Yablochkov's invention made a splash at the exhibition of physical instruments in London. All major European consumers immediately become interested in them, and within a couple of years, Yablochkov's candle appears on the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome and a great many other European cities. Electric candles replace obsolete lighting in theaters, shops, wealthy homes. They managed to highlight even the huge Parisian hippodrome and the ruins of the Colosseum.
So Yablochkov's candle illuminated Paris at night
Candles were sold in huge volumes for those times - the Breguet plant produced 8 thousand pieces daily. The subsequent improvements of Yablochkov himself also contributed to the demand. So, with the help of impurities added to the kaolin insulator, Yablochkov achieved a softer and more pleasant spectrum of emitted light.
So is London
In Russia, Yablochkov's candles first appeared in 1878 in St. Petersburg. In the same year, the inventor temporarily returns to his homeland. Here he is stormily met with honors and congratulations. The purpose of the return was to create a commercial enterprise that would help accelerate electrification and promote the spread of electric lamps in Russia.
However, the already mentioned meager entrepreneurial talents of the inventor, coupled with the inertia and bias traditional for Russian officials, prevented grandiose plans. Despite the large cash injections, Yablochkov's candles in Russia did not receive such distribution as in Europe.
Sunset Candle Yablochkov
In fact, the decline of arc lamps began even before Yablochkov invented his candle. Many do not know this, but the world's first patent for an incandescent lamp was also received by a Russian scientist - Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin. And this was done in 1874.
Yablochkov, of course, knew very well about Lodygin's inventions. Moreover, indirectly, he himself took part in the development of the first incandescent lamps. In 1875-76, while working on an insulating partition for his candle, Yablochkov discovered the possibility of using koalin as a thread in such lamps. But the inventor considered that incandescent lamps had no future, and until the end of his days he purposefully did not work on their design. History has shown that Yablochkov was grossly mistaken in this.
In the second half of the 1870s, the American inventor Thomas Edison patented his incandescent carbon filament lamp, which had a lifespan of 40 hours. Despite many shortcomings, it begins to quickly replace arc lamps. And already in the 1890s, the light bulb takes on a form familiar to us - all the same Alexander Lodygin first suggests using refractory metals, including tungsten, to make a thread, and twisting them into a spiral, and then he is the first to pump air out of the flask to increase the period thread services. The world's first commercial incandescent lamp with a twisted tungsten filament was produced precisely according to Lodygin's patent.
One of Lodygin's lamps
Yablochkov practically did not catch this revolution of electric lighting, having died suddenly in 1894, at the age of 47. Early death was the result of poisoning with poisonous chlorine, with which the inventor worked a lot in experiments. During his short life, Yablochkov managed to create several more useful inventions - the world's first alternating current generator and transformer, as well as wooden separators for chemical batteries, which are still used today.
And although the Yablochkov candle in its original form has sunk into oblivion, like all arc lamps of that time, it continues to exist in a new quality today - in the form of gas-discharge lamps, which have recently been widely introduced instead of incandescent lamps. Well-known neon, xenon or mercury lamps (which are also called " daylight lamps”) work based on the same principle as the legendary Yablochkov candle.
Once I asked my friends a seemingly simple question: who invented the electric light bulb? And I received a variety of answers. Someone named the American Edison, someone - our compatriot Alexander Lodygin, and someone remembered the name of another Russian inventor - Pavel Yablochkov. So who is right? Yes, everyone is right. After all, the history of the light bulb is a whole chain of discoveries made by different people at different times. And Edison here made a significant contribution, and Lodygin, and Yablochkov, who is rightly considered one of its pioneers. And besides, we must definitely remember the outstanding Russian physicist Vasily Petrov, who back in 1802 observed the phenomenon of an electric arc - a bright discharge that occurs between carbon rods-electrodes brought together at a certain distance. One should also remember the names of V. Chikolev and A. Shpakovsky, who also contributed to this outstanding invention...
However, we will dwell in more detail on Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. After all, it is with him that one of the most curious and instructive "inventive" stories is connected.
The waiter, who instantly appeared at a table in a small Parisian cafe, took an uncomplicated order and disappeared into the kitchen. While waiting, the visitor absentmindedly took a notebook out of his pocket, put it on the table, and took up a pencil. One of the pages was covered with intricate drawings. The uninitiated would not have understood anything in them - a lot of some kind of sticks, connected in pairs by thin arcs. Moreover, sketches of drawings of some mechanisms with small gears, like in a clock. And the explanations adjacent to the drawings would have remained all the more mysterious for a Parisian, because they were made in a foreign language. The visitor to the cafe bent over the notes, forgetting where he was, and thought deeply.
This happened in 1876, when the hero of our story, Pavel Yablochkov, was barely twenty-nine years old. Behind his studies at the St. Petersburg Military School, where he became interested in physics, and in particular, so little studied of its area - electricity. He had already served as head of the telegraph office of the newly built Moscow-Kursk railway. But this occupation took a lot of time, and Yablochkov left him in order to devote himself to what he considered the main thing in life - the development of a reliable design of an electric arc lamp.
Fate brought him to Paris, because no one showed much interest in his experiments in his homeland, in Russia. Here, one of the French firms provided the inventor with a workshop. And for a month now, Yablochkov has been struggling with a solution that seemed somewhere very close, but everything was slipping away.
The experiments of Vasily Petrov showed that an electric arc that gives bright light occurs only when the ends of horizontally located carbon electrodes are at a strictly defined distance from each other. Slightly it decreases or increases, the discharge disappears. Meanwhile, during the discharge, the coals burn out, so that the gap between them grows all the time. And in order to use coals in an electric arc lamp, it was necessary to come up with a special regulator mechanism that would constantly, at a certain speed, move the burnable rods towards each other. Then the arc will not go out.
In fairness, it must be said that such attempts were made even before Yablochkov. The Russian inventors Shpakovsky and Chikolev developed their arc lamps with regulators. Shpakovsky's electric lamps in 1856 were already burning in Moscow on Red Square during the coronation of Alexander II. Chikolev, on the other hand, used the powerful light of an electric arc to operate powerful marine searchlights. The automatic regulators invented by these inventors had differences, but they converged on one thing - they were unreliable. The lamps did not burn for long, but they were expensive.
It is clear that a different mechanism was required - simple and trouble-free. It was Pavel Yablochkov who fought over him for a month, he only thought about him - both in his studio, and wandering the streets of Paris, and even here, in a cafe.
The clock mechanism that was used in Shpakovsky's light bulb could not foresee all the "whims" of unevenly burning coal. Something else is needed. But what?
The waiter came with a tray, Yablochkov removed the notepad from the table. And, continuing to think about his own, mechanically watched how he puts the dish, how he puts down the spoon, fork, knife ...
And suddenly ... Yablochkov abruptly got up from the table and went to the exit, not hearing the hail of the taken aback waiter. He hurried to his studio. Here it is, finally, the solution! The simplest and absolutely reliable! Found! It came to him as soon as he looked at the cutlery lying next to each other, parallel to each other.
Yes, this is how carbon electrodes should be placed in the lamp - not horizontally, as in all previous designs, but in parallel! Then both will burn out exactly the same, and the distance between them will always be constant. And no clever regulators are needed here!
The very next year, Yablochkov's "electric candle" brightly illuminated the Louvre department store in Paris. Its design was completely different from all previous ones: two carbon rods were separated by an insulating layer of kaolin. They were fixed on a simple stand resembling a candlestick. The electrodes burned evenly, and the lamp gave a bright light, and for quite a long time. It was easy to make such an "electric candle" and it was cheap. It is not surprising that she began a victorious march around the wide world. A year later, the bulbs of the Russian inventor were lit on the Thames embankments in London, then in Berlin. Soon Yablochkov returned to Russia, and his "candle" lit up Petersburg...
Of course, the waiter, who was once surprised by a strange visitor, did not even suspect that he had become, as it were, a co-author of the invention. But who knows, if he hadn’t put a knife and a spoon so carefully in front of Yablochkov, maybe a lightning-fast guess would not have dawned on the inventor. True, the "hint" of the waiter found, as they say, fertile ground. After all, Yablochkov was looking for his solution even here, at the cafe table, waiting for the order. If it weren't for this, nothing but a competent table setting would have been noticed by the visitor.
Over time, the "Yablochkov candle" was replaced by more economical and convenient incandescent lamps, in which a thin thread heated by electricity gives bright light. This innovation is associated with the name of Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin. It was he who guessed to pump air out of a glass cone, he had the idea to replace a thin thread of coal with a metal one - from molybdenum or tungsten. Edison, on the other hand, invented a bulb holder and invented a perfect pump that allowed air to be pumped out of the bulb almost to a vacuum.
And "Yablochkov's candle" has now become a museum exhibit with an interesting history of its creation. It kind of reminds us that great discoveries are visited only by prepared minds.