An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the socket of a light fixture, which is often called a "lamp" as well. The electrical connection to the socket may be made with a screw-thread base, two metal pins, two metal caps or a bayonet cap.
An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxidation. Current is supplied to the filament by terminals or wires embedded in the glass. A bulb socket provides mechanical support and electrical connections.
A halogen lamp is an incandescent lamp consisting of a tungsten filament sealed in a compact transparent envelope that is filled with a mixture of an inert gas and a small amount of a halogen, such as iodine or bromine. The combination of the halogen gas and the tungsten filament produces a halogen-cycle chemical reaction, which redeposits evaporated tungsten on the filament, increasing its life and maintaining the clarity of the envelope. This allows the filament to operate at a higher temperature than a standard incandescent lamp of similar power and operating life; this also produces light with higher luminous efficacy and color temperature. The small size of halogen lamps permits their use in compact optical systems for projectors and illumination. The small glass envelope may be enclosed in a much larger outer glass bulb, which has a lower temperature, protects the inner bulb from contamination, and makes the bulb mechanically more similar to a conventional lamp.
Artificial lighting technology began to be developed tens of thousands of years ago and continues to be refined in the present day.
Henry Woodward was a Canadian inventor and a major pioneer in the development of the incandescent lamp. He was born in 1832.
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for developing and supplying the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1881.
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor coating on the inside of the lamp to glow. A fluorescent lamp converts electrical energy into useful light much more efficiently than an incandescent lamp. The typical luminous efficacy of fluorescent lighting systems is 50–100 lumens per watt, several times the efficacy of incandescent bulbs with comparable light output. For comparison, the luminous efficacy of an incandescent bulb may only be 16 lumens per watt.
Daniel McFarlan Moore was a U.S. electrical engineer and inventor. He developed a novel light source, the "Moore lamp", and a business that produced them in the early 1900s. The Moore lamp was the first commercially viable light-source based on gas discharges instead of incandescence; it was the predecessor to contemporary neon lighting and fluorescent lighting. In his later career Moore developed a miniature neon lamp that was extensively used in electronic displays, as well as vacuum tubes that were used in early television systems.
The Phoebus cartel was an oligopoly that controlled the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs. They appropriated market territories and lowered the useful life of such bulbs. Corporations based in Europe and the United States founded the cartel on January 15, 1925 in Geneva. Phoebus based itself in Switzerland. The corporation named itself Phœbus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l'Éclairage. They had intended the cartel to last for thirty years. The cartel ceased operations in 1939 owing to the outbreak of World War II. The cartel included manufacturers Osram, General Electric, Associated Electrical Industries, and Philips, among others.
Tungsram was a manufacturing company located in Hungary and known for their light bulbs and electronics. Established in Újpest in 1896, it initially produced telephones, wires and switchboards. The name "Tungsram" is a portmanteau of tungsten and wolfram, the two common names of the metal used for making light bulb filaments. Before becoming nationalized by the Communist government in 1945, the company was the world's third largest manufacturer of light bulbs and radiotubes, after the American General Electric and RCA companies.
Luminous efficacy is a measure of how well a light source produces visible light. It is the ratio of luminous flux to power, measured in lumens per watt in the International System of Units (SI). Depending on context, the power can be either the radiant flux of the source's output, or it can be the total power consumed by the source. Which sense of the term is intended must usually be inferred from the context, and is sometimes unclear. The former sense is sometimes called luminous efficacy of radiation, and the latter luminous efficacy of a light source or overall luminous efficacy.
William David Coolidge was an American physicist and engineer, who made major contributions to X-ray machines. He was the director of the General Electric Research Laboratory and a vice-president of the corporation. He was also famous for the development of "ductile tungsten", which is important for the incandescent light bulb.
The Nernst lamp was an early form of incandescent lamp.
Edison screw (ES) is a standard lightbulb socket for electric light bulbs. It was developed by Thomas Edison (1847–1931), patented in 1881, and was licensed in 1909 under General Electric's Mazda trademark. The bulbs have right-hand threaded metal bases (caps) which screw into matching threaded sockets. For bulbs powered by AC current, the thread is generally connected to neutral and the contact on the bottom tip of the base is connected to the "live" phase.
General Electric Research Laboratory was the first industrial research facility in the United States. Established in 1900, the lab was home to the early technological breakthroughs of General Electric and created a research and development environment that set the standard for industrial innovation for years to come. It developed into GE Global Research that now covers an array of technological research, ranging from healthcare to transportation systems, at multiple locations throughout the world. Its campus in Schenectady, New York was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975.
George Francis Morrison (1867–1943), was an American business executive, industrialist, Edison Pioneer, and a Director and Vice President of General Electric Company. He was one of Thomas Edison's closest associates and a pioneer in the production of the incandescent lamp. Towards the latter part of his decades-long career, Morrison traveled the world introducing the lamp and promoting its use.
The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Limited was a manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs and other electrical goods. It was formed in 1883 with the name Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company with the merger of the Swan United Electric Company and the Edison Electric Light Company.
Edison light bulbs, also known as filament light bulbs and retroactively referred to as antique light bulbs or vintage light bulbs, are either carbon- or early tungsten-filament incandescent light bulbs, or modern bulbs that reproduce their appearance. Most of the bulbs in circulation are reproductions of the wound filament bulbs made popular by Edison Electric Light Company at the turn of the 20th century. They are easily identified by the long and complicated windings of their internal filaments, and by the very warm-yellow glow of the light they produce.
The Hammer Historical Collection of Incandescent Electric Lamps was an exhibit of early electric light bulbs and was collected by William Joseph Hammer. The collection of lamp bulbs is the most comprehensive known in the world. It shows the technology development of the filament electric light bulb during Thomas Edison's lifetime. Hammer's collection was displayed for years in five glass cases at the Headquarters of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City. It is now housed at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
La Compagnie des Lampes was a name used by several French companies all in the area of electrical products particularly lighting.
