11

BULBS

Improviser’s Toolbox: Light bulb

FEATURE

Light up your projects with this illuminating tool

something viable, thanks to better vacuum pumps and

the use of a treated cotton thread that helped prevent

the bulb from blackening.

Thomas Edison was one of the two dozen inventors

working on perfecting the light bulb. He experimented

with different types of elements as filaments, including

platinum before settling on carbon. He patented his

improvement in the late 1870s and began marketing

it soon after. The cargo and passenger steamship SS

Columbia became the first ship to use electric lights

instead of oil lamps.

The next major evolution in the bulb’s design came

from the team of Hungarian and Croatian chemists

who were the first to patent the use of a tungsten

filament, instead of the carbon one, in 1904. Then, in

1913, Irving Langmuir doubled the bulb’s luminous

efficacy by filling it with an insert gas.

But the days of the traditional light bulb are

numbered, mostly because of the falling prices

of energy-efficient alternatives. While it may have

taken over two dozen inventors to design the light

bulb, there’s still enough room for makers to use

them creatively. So, the next time one blows out on

you, instead of chucking it away, use it to brighten

your builds.

ow many inventors does it take to

design the light bulb?

The incandescent light bulb is energy-

inefficient by design. It converts less

than 10% of the supplied electricity into

visible light and loses the rest as heat.

Despite this major shortcoming, light bulbs are still one

of the most popular means of illumination all over the

world, primarily because of their ability to easily adapt

to electrical systems and operate even in low voltages.

At the core of the bulb is a wire filament that’s

heated to such a high temperature that it glows with

visible light. The emission of light from a hot object is

known as incandescence. The glass bulb that helps

protect the wire filament from oxidation is filled with

an inert gas. The concept of heating a wire to produce

light was first demonstrated in 1761. Over the next

several decades, many inventors produced their

variation of the light bulb, but none of the designs were

practical enough for commercial application.

One of the major milestones in the evolution of the

light bulb came in 1850 with English physicist Joseph

Swan, whose design enclosed carbonised paper

filaments in a vacuum glass bulb. It lasted longer than

previous iterations, but it wasn’t until 1878 that he had

H

LIGHT

Mayank Sharma

@geekybodhi

Mayank is a Padawan

maker with an

irrational fear of drills.

He likes to replicate

electronic builds,

and gets a kick out

of hacking everyday

objects creatively.