The evolution of lamps

The earliest existing torches and lamps in China date from the Warring States Period. In "Songs of Chu: Soul Calling", there is a record of "orchid paste bright candles, Chinese stirrups are wrong", indicating that the name " stirrup " appeared during the Warring States period. .

The ancients called "stirrup" a lamp, which should be a borrowed meaning of the word. Dou is a cooking utensil in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, used to hold pickles, meat sauce, etc. It is also an ancient ritual vessel, mostly made of bronze and pottery. The Tao Dou is the earliest lamp currently available.

Before the advent of electric lights, the most commonly used lighting tools were kerosene lamps or gas lamps. This kind of lamp burns kerosene or gas, so it produces strong black smoke and a pungent odor. It is also very inconvenient to add fuel and clean the lampshade frequently.

The earliest practical electric light was an incandescent lamp, but long before the incandescent lamp was born, the Englishman Humphry Davy made an arc lamp using 2000 batteries and two carbon rods, but this arc light The lamp is too bright, generates too much heat and is not durable, making it impossible to use in ordinary places.

In 1854, Henry Goebel, a German watchmaker who immigrated to the United States, used a carbonized bamboo wire placed in a vacuum glass bottle to make the first practical electric lamp, which lasted 400 times. hours, but he did not apply for a patent in time.

In 1874, two Canadian electrical technicians applied for a patent for an electric light: filling nitrogen gas under a glass bulb and using an electrified carbon rod to emit light. However, they did not have enough financial resources to continue to perfect this invention. So the patent was sold to Edison in 1875. After purchasing the patent, Edison tried to improve the filament, and finally created a carbonized bamboo filament lamp in 1880 that could last for 1,200 hours.

However, the U.S. Patent Office ruled that Edison's carbon filament incandescent lamp invention was behind others and the patent was invalid. After years of legal battles, Henry Goebbels won the patent, which Edison eventually purchased from Goebbels' impoverished widow.

At the beginning of the 20th century, carbonized filaments were replaced by tungsten filaments, and tungsten filament incandescent lamps are still in use today.

In 1938, fluorescent lamps were born. In 1998, white LED lights were born.

Extended information:

The invention of the electric light:

Contrary to people's common understanding, Edison was not the original inventor of the electric light. Edison improved the electric light. As early as 1801, a British chemist named Humphrey Davy used platinum wire to generate electricity in the laboratory.

In 1810, he invented the "electric candle" that was illuminated by the arc generated between two energized carbon rods. This was considered the earliest prototype of the electric light. After nearly 30 years of research, another British electrical engineer, Joseph Swan, made a vacuum light bulb that used carbon filaments to energize and emit light in December 1878.

The reports about Swann's light bulb inspired Edison a lot. In October 1879, Edison finally succeeded in making an incandescent light bulb using carbon fiber as the filament. During this period, he continued to improve the technology and finally decided to use tungsten filament as the filament, which was called "tungsten filament lamp" and has been used to this day. Edison He also became recognized as the inventor of the electric light.

Reference materials:

Baidu Encyclopedia--Electric Lights