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The incandescent light bulb was invented and continued to develop from the early 1800s. Prior to this, simple candles and oil lamps, and other similar lighting was utilized in everyday life. The journey of the incandescent lamp began in 1809 when Humphrey Davy produced the very first arc lamp by inducing current in between two charcoal strips utilizing a high powered battery. This was followed up through to the 1880s, with various incandescent light bulbs being produced by different groups and people. All had exactly the same idea of making a light bulb which contained an element with a high melting point, such as platinum, inside an evacuated chamber.

Numerous high melting point elements were utilized to attempt to produce a practical, cost efficient incandescent lamp with a lengthy life. The theory was, the greater the temperature, the brighter the light. Consequently the greater the melting point of the material, the much more effectively the lamp would function at high temperatures, resulting in the emission of a brighter ligh. The element would also have a smaller amount of gas particles to react with within an evacuated chamber resulting in a longer life span. Many people created light bulbs in this way, however the struggle was to produce 1 which lasted for substantial periods of time. The very first incandescent lamp which lasted a practical length of time was developed by Edison and Swan in 1879, which lasted around 13 and a half hours. Nevertheless, in 1880 Edison produced a filament which lasted for up to 1200 hours - the best life-span by far.

An incandescent lamps efficiency is focused upon reaching high filament temperatures, but with a minimal amount of heat loss and degrading. The more heat which is lost and the faster the filament degrades, the much less efficient the light bulb is. Edison used carbon filaments within his early incandescent light bulbs as this has the highest melting temperature, having said that it evaporates at a rapid rate, resulting in a shorter life span. The life span was increased by the filament starting to be operated in a lower temperate, however the brightness of the lamp also decreased.

Within the early 1900s, the more modern tungsten filament incandescent lightbulb was devised by William Coolidge and the General Electric Company. This is the light bulb we know today used for indoor or outdoor lights. This element truly enhanced efficiency of light bulbs because of its strength, pliability, workability, high melting point and low evaporation rate. The high melting point of tungsten resulted in a very bright light, even though it continued to evaporate fairly quick. Various inert gases such as nitrogen were added to light bulbs which decreased the rate of evaporation to increase filament life, however, this also affected the temperature of the filament, resulting in a dimmer light. Creating a coil from the filament was confirmed to have good results in sustaining a greater temperature, thus sustaining a brighter light. Coiled filaments are continually utilized in incandescent lamps today.

Incandescent light bulbs still lose a lot of heat, with only 4-6% of the power which is supplied to bulbs being converted to light, up to 96% is wasted as heat. Therefore energy saving light bulbs, also known as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were eventually produced.

The original fluorescent lamp was invented within the late 1890s. Since, numerous businesses and people have developed on this thought to create practical fluorescent lamps which had been originally sold in 1938. The shape of the fluorescent lamp began as a long fixture, which then progressed into circular and u-shaped lamps and then into the three-dimensional spiral (helical). Even though the helical lamp was developed in the 1970s, the design never go ahead, and was later copied by others within the mid 90s when is was sold commercially. Eco light bulbs were introduced by big businesses like Philips and Osram within the 80s, which included the first successful replacement for screw-in incandescent lamps with an integral ballast, and the first CFL to consist of an electronic ballast.

Original eco lamps often weredull and flickered as the technology were continuing being developed. These days they truly are a new generation. They are incredibly effective, saving up to 80% of power, very bright and have a very lengthy life span, lasting about 8x longer than tradition incandescent lamps.

The journey of incandescent light bulbs used for indoor or garden lighting has now come to an end, with all wattages soon to be banned in the United Kingdom, however the journey for energy saving light bulbs and LEDs is only just beginning !