Old News, Just Learned: Edison didn’t invent the light bulb

Maybe I’m a little behind the times. But I was just watching an episode of the fantastic BBC/Discovery documentary appropriately named “Light Fantastic” and it made the claim that the incandescent light bulb was invented by a British manufacturing chemist named Joseph Swan in the 1870s. Wait?! What?! Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb?

Quick! To the Google! Apparently so. Edison didn’t invent the first incandescent light bulb. But he did invent the technologies to make the light bulb last longer before burning out. And actually, it looks like Swan wasn’t the first either. No less that 22 prior inventions have been found going as far back as the 1840s.

So why does Edison seem to get most of the credit? Without power in the home, there was no way to power a light bulb. Edison developed the first power transmission system for the expressed purpose of lighting up Manhattan. He thought out the whole ecosystem. Suddenly there were sales on a mass scale. Now, Swan does get some credit too. But his initial customers were limited to those in Britain who had flowing bodies of water running alongside their properties – with flowing water you get cheap, clean hydroelectric power.

Those other 22 prior inventions? First, their inventors didn’t think about power transmission. But most importantly, man of the earlier filaments didn’t last long before burning out – largely due to high air pressure inside the bulb (incandescent bulbs need as close to a vacuum as possible). Hence, they didn’t make it out of the lab. Swan’s bulb lasted a decent 150 hours (1 month at 5 hours a night) thanks to a good performing carbonized cotton filament and better vacuums. In the 1890′s Edison improved on Swan’s design with a better carbonized bamboo filament.

History is a fascinating bitch!

For more info see: Invention City, Wikipedia.