Inventor of the Incandescent Lamp – From ancient times, humans definitely needed something called light, because it is to provide lighting for daily activities. The development of an increasingly advanced era makes lighting that comes from light also more advanced. Natural lighting comes from the sun, while artificial lighting is usually used at night.
At first, artificial lighting only came from fire, but as electricity continued to grow, light at night also developed. Lighting at night usually comes from lamps.
Even though, nowadays many people in some areas use lamps more often, but sometimes some people still use fire as a source of lighting. Usually in modern times, lighting with fire is done when there is a “lights out”, the absence of light during a “lights out” disrupts activities. In fact, when the “lights go out” it’s not uncommon for us to get hit by something when walking in a room. Both the light that comes from a lamp or that comes from a fire, is still needed by humans.
The lamps that are used by many people do not just appear or you could say someone invented or created the lamp. Almost everyone knows who invented the lamp. This is because the lesson about who is the inventor of the lamp has been taught since Elementary School (SD). By knowing who is the inventor of the lamp, then our knowledge about the lamp is increasing.
However, most people only know the name of the inventor of the lamp, but there are still some people who know a brief biography of the inventor of the lamp. For Sinaumed’s, who wants to know more about the inventor of the lamp, reading this article is one way. Below, we will explain more about the inventor of the lamp, see this article, Sinaumed’s.
Incandescent lamps
The incandescent lamp is an invention developed by Thomas Alva Edison. An incandescent lamp can be interpreted as a source of artificial light that can only function (give off light) if it is supplied with electricity. Meanwhile, in the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI) an incandescent lamp is a lamp that emits light from a glowing wire inside a light bulb, when it gets an electric current.
An incandescent lamp consists of a filament and glass. The glass on the incandescent lamp serves to prevent air from getting inside until it hits the filament. If the air enters the filament, it will be damaged and the lamp will not function or will not emit light. The new filament can function if it is electrified.
Incandescent lamps that are sold in various shops have very diverse shapes and also have various types of voltage (voltage), some are 1.25 volts to 300 volts. The bigger the incandescent bulb needs, the brighter the incandescent light will be, and vice versa.
In fact, incandescent lamps do not only function as lighting, in some cases, incandescent lamps function as room heaters or increase the room temperature. One of the functions of an incandescent lamp is as a space heater when placed in a chicken coop. The chicken will feel warm at night, so its health will be maintained.
Get to know Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the incandescent light bulb
Thomas Alva Edison is a world scientist who played a role in the development of the incandescent lamp, where his invention of the incandescent lamp has so far been felt by many people. Edison was born in the city of Milan, Ohio, United States on February 11, 1841. He was the youngest of 7 children and was born in a simple family.
However, Edison had a hearing impairment, but his mother loved him very much. This is shown by the affection given when caring for Edison even though his body has weaknesses. What’s more, Edison was a child who liked to hear advice from his parents.
Edison did have a weakness in the sense of hearing since he was 12 years old which was caused by a fever he had suffered since childhood. Edison always believed that behind human deficiencies, God would surely give his servants advantages. Therefore, Edison remained humble and always hoped for the best things for himself.
Thomas Alva Edison loved to read so much that he has already read countless books. The books he often reads are books on mechanical science. For Edison, mechanical science has always been the main attraction for development because machines will always experience developments to keep up with the times.
Apart from being fond of reading, he also really hopes to become a person who can benefit the nation and the country and can make his parents proud. Curiosity about new things made Edison learn or explore new things. However, Edison’s education was very limited due to very simple family conditions, which forced Edison to stop continuing his education.
For Edison, knowledge can be obtained anywhere, it does not have to be obtained at school. Thanks to this concept of his life, Edison began to seek knowledge everywhere, so that almost all of his life he could not be separated from seeking knowledge. In fact, he grew into a person who never gave up. The knowledge he gets most often comes from the books he reads.
The condition of the family which is far from affluent means that Edison, at his young age, can easily help his parents to make a living. He sells newspapers and candy at a station to earn extra income to fulfill his daily life. In between selling, he takes the time to read books.
Career Journey
As he got older, Thomas Alva Edison started looking for work so that he would have income and be able to help or offset the living expenses of his parents. Edison began working as a telegraph operator. While working, Edison knew how to run a telegraph machine. The job of being a telegraph operator was used by Edison to add to his knowledge, especially in the field of machinery.
The telegraph can be likened to a communication tool that can send messages to people who are far away. At that time, when they wanted to send messages via telegraph, they still used Morse codes. In other words, the use of the telegraph is still very manual. Therefore, the telegraph can be likened to sending SMS, sending emails, and sending chats . However, currently, the telegraph is almost no longer used by humans because they cannot compete with technological developments.
During his many years of work, Edison always observed the workings of the telegraph machine in detail. While working at the telegraph company, Edison always prioritized to provide the best results for himself and the company. Thanks to his persistence when working as a telegraph machine operator and tenacity in operating the telegraph machine, he was appointed head of the telegraph machine.
Developing the Telegraph Machine
Thanks to his hard work while working at the telegraph company, Thomas Alva Edison gained a lot of knowledge from the work he had done. The important thing to get while working as a telegraph machine operator is to know how the telegraph machine works. From the knowledge gained during his work, he used it to conduct research and experiments.
Edison, who already understood how the telegraph machine worked, made a very important discovery. The discovery was in the form of a telegraph machine that was developed. Edison made this discovery because he felt that the previous telegraph machine still had some drawbacks, so Edison wanted to make the telegraph machine better than the previous one.
The discovery of the telegraph machine that had been developed occurred in 1870. Curiosity about various kinds of new things would always benefit Edison. As time went on, Edison began to feel that he did not want to work under a leadership or you could say he really wanted to have a company so he could become a leader. In addition, he thinks that being an employee in a company can make the knowledge that is in him not develop.
Again and again, thanks to the nature of his hard work, Edison managed to build a telegraph company. His telegraph company was used by many people in the United States (at that time). What’s even better is the profit from this telegraph machine, he saved for capital to build a new company.
By building a new company, Edison could try many new things, especially in terms of inventions. In 1869, Edison moved to New York, United States and in that city, he started trying new things and hoped to develop various kinds of inventions.
Getting Interested In Electricity
Thomas Alva Edison worked for a telegraph company as a machine operator for a long time and there he gained a lot of knowledge about how the telegraph worked. After getting this knowledge, Edison began to develop his telegraph machine. Thanks to the telegraph machine that had been developed, Edison started building a telegraph machine company. In fact, he saved the profits from the telegraph machine sold for the sake of expanding his business.
After working in the world of telegraph machines for a long time, Edison became interested in electricity when he met Rutherford in the United States. The world of electricity is a new thing, so it needs to be studied more deeply by Edison. When studying electricity, Edison began to think that he would find something useful for the nation and state, especially his parents.
In his mind, Edison felt challenged to make an invention from the world of electricity. One of the things that challenged Edison to have an invention was the existence of an electric light bulb. Basically, at that time, research and experiments on electric light balls had been discovered by many scientists. However, Edison still thought that the previous invention of the electric light bulb still had some drawbacks.
Seeing the lack of previously found objects can be said to be one of the things that motivated Edison to create an invention. This is the same as when he developed the telegraph machine. At the beginning of the world of electricity began to develop, that’s when Edison began to study and explore the science of electricity.
At that time, there were actually scientists who had developed an electric light bulb, but according to Edison, it still had drawbacks. The drawback is that it can harm humans when an electric light bulb is installed or used at home.
The Journey to Invent the Incandescent Lamp
The electric light bulb invented by the previous inventor is considered to still have flaws. On that basis, Thomas Alva Edison began to conduct various kinds of incandescent lamp experiments to perfect his previous inventions. The first thing that Edison learned when developing an incandescent lamp was to study and explore the workings of an electric light bulb or incandescent lamp.
With tenacity, faith, and not giving up easily, Edison began to do several experiments. None of the experiments that have been carried out have been successful, so Edison continues to carry out subsequent experiments. In fact, experiments on incandescent lamps have been carried out hundreds of times or more precisely about 900 times.
Every failed attempt is always marked by the breaking of a glass ball of electric light or an incandescent lamp. Even though, the glass of the incandescent lamp experiment had been broken several times, the excitement of finding a discovery never disappeared. From the experiments that had been carried out, Edison finally succeeded in finding or perfecting the invention of an electric light bulb or incandescent lamp.
The light emitted from Thomas Alva Edison’s incandescent lamp did not break. Not only that, the light emitted from incandescent lamps is also very bright, so they can be used as room lighting at home. The light from this incandescent lamp is golden yellow. At that time, people slowly began to use these incandescent lamps.
Creating an Electric Company
Thanks to an invention, Thomas Alva Edison began to develop his invention by building an electricity-based company. At that time, every technology related or related to electricity, it would be developed by Edison, especially incandescent lamp technology.
Edison did not hesitate to develop the invention of the incandescent lamp, even during a demonstration in December 1879 at Menlo Park, many people were amazed. People’s admiration for incandescent lamps is because when incandescent lamps can illuminate the house at night. The light from the incandescent lamp was something new at that time, so many people were surprised.
Edison saw that the development of electricity would always be used by the community, so he tried to build an electricity-based company. Until 1889, Thomas Alva Edison started to build a company under the name Edison General Electric . Edison realized that he was a scientist, so he worked with JP Morgan. Edison did this because he realized that it was not smart to manage a company.
The company experienced quite good growth, so Edison began to cooperate again with Thompson-Houston in 1892. When the collaboration took place, Edison’s company name changed to Simply General Electric.
Conclusion
The incandescent lamp that was well developed by Thomas Alva Edison, at that time was widely used by many people and was usually used to illuminate the yard, living room, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and so on. In addition, the price of these incandescent lamps varies widely, some are affordable and some are quite expensive. Along with the times, the shape of the incandescent lamp is very diverse, so that the buyer or user can adjust the lamp according to his wishes.
However, the development of the times has made incandescent lamps begin to lose to fluorescent lamps. Incandescent lamps have a golden yellow color, while fluorescent lamps have a white color. Although, nowadays, fluorescent lamps are often used by many people, but without the invention of the incandescent lamp, neon lamps have not been invented.