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LicenseOriginal incandescent electric carbon filament lamp
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp, by Thomas Alva Edison, Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States of America, with bulb made by Ludwig K. Boehm, Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States of America, 1879
Very early incandescent electric lamp made by Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), this lamp has a single loop of carbon which glowed when a current flowed through it. The glass bulb (made by the glass blower, Boehm) was evacuated so that there was so little oxygen in the bulb that the filament could get white hot without burning.
The first practical electrical incandescent lamps were invented independently in the late 1870s by Joseph Swan in England and Thomas Edison in the USA. Advances in filament design, vacuum technique and glass-blowing led to the rapid refinement of the lamps and ultimately to the ubiquity of electric lighting. Edison himself supervised the installation of the world's first permanent, commercial central power system, which became operative in September 1882, to power electric light.
An Edison certificate of lamp life, for the original incandescent electric carbon filament lamp. The certificate states "This lamp was lighted 1390 hours and gave a light of 13 candles. Thomas A Edison, Menlo Park, Sept 15 1880."
