Thursday, October 21, 2004
Happy birthday, carbon filament
125 years ago today, Edison "invented the lightbulb" by testing a certain type of carbon filament which burned for 40 hours. As far as who actually first invented what Edison was working with, it was either Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans - Canadians from which Edison purchased a particular patent, or Joseph Wilson Swan - a dude in England Edison sued. Heinrich Gobel, a German gentleman, invented the first practical vacuum light bulb in 1854 - it burned 400 hours - 25 years before Edison "invented" the lightbulb.
It just feels good for some to think an American invented the light bulb.
// posted by Erik @ 10/21/2004 05:58:00 AM
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Comments:
Edison and Swan never sued each other; in fact, their companies in England merged. The Canadian light patent reveals an unworkable device, and was NOT sold to Edison. There was no lawsuit by Gobel against Edison. All of the statements in your post are examples of 'junk information', spread by the Internet: once bad info is available, it gets spread all over.
Oh, ps - Edison never claimed to have invented THE light bulb, but only the Edison electric light. His much more important contribution was the system of generating & distributing electricity to customers, just like gas light.
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