Light Bulbs

The incandescent light bulb (also spelled lightbulb) or incandescent lamp is a source of artificial light that works by incandescence. An electrical current passes through a thin filament, heating it until it produces light. more...

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The enclosing glass bulb prevents the oxygen in air from reaching the hot filament, which otherwise would be destroyed rapidly by oxidation. The operating principle of an incandescent lamp is similar to that of blackbody radiation.

Incandescent bulbs are also called electric lamps, a term originally applied to the original arc lamps. In the theater, television, and motion-picture industries, the incandescent lamps used in lighting instruments are sometimes referred to as globes, and light globe is also used widely in Australia to refer to incandescent lamps generally.

Incandescent bulbs are made in a wide range of sizes and voltages, from 1.5 volts to about 300 volts. They require no external regulating equipment and have a low manufacturing cost, and work well on either alternating current or direct current. As a result the incandescent lamp is widely used in household and commercial lighting, for portable lighting, such as table lamps, some car headlamps and electric flashlights, and for decorative and advertising lighting.

Some applications of the incandescent bulb make use of the heat generated, such as incubators (for hatching eggs), brooding boxes for young poultry, heat lights for reptile tanks, and the Easy-Bake Oven toy. In cold weather the heat shed by incandescent lamps contributes to building heating, but in hot climates lamp losses increase the energy used by air conditioning systems.

Incandescent light bulbs are gradually being replaced in many applications by (compact) fluorescent lights, high-intensity discharge lamps, LEDs, and other devices, which give more visible light for the same amount of electrical energy input. Brazil and Venezuela were the first countries to attempt to phase out the use of incandescent light bulbs in 2005. Australia has announced it will phase out incandescent light bulbs in favour of compact fluorescent lights by 2010. Politicians in other countries have proposed similar measures (see the Proposals to outlaw section).

History of the light bulb

In addressing the question "Who invented the incandescent lamp?" historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Swan and Edison. They conclude that Edison's version was able to outstrip the others because of a combination of factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve and a high resistance lamp that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable. Another historian, Thomas Hughes, has attributed Edison's success to the fact that he invented an entire, integrated system of electric lighting. "The lamp was a small component in his system of electric lighting, and no more critical to its effective functioning than the Edison Jumbo generator, the Edison main and feeder, and the parallel-distribution system. Other inventors with generators and incandescent lamps, and with comparable ingenuity and excellence, have long been forgotten because their creators did not preside over their introduction in a system of lighting."

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