Swan wasn't the only competitor Edison faced. Illustration showing Thomas Edison with a lightbulb (Image credit: Getty: Ivan-96) The two inventors eventually joined forces and formed Edison-Swan United, which became one of the world’s largest manufacturers of lightbulbs, according to the Science Museum Group. Swan incorporated the improvement into his lightbulbs and founded an electrical lighting company in England.Įdison sued for patent infringement, but Swan's patent was a strong claim, at least in the UK, according to CIO. He demonstrated his lightbulb in December 1879. A thin filament with high electrical resistance would make a lamp practical because it would require only a little current to make it glow. Unfortunately for Swan, the vacuum pumps of his day were not efficient as they are now, and while his prototype worked well for a demonstration, it was impractical in actual use.Įdison realized that the problem with Swan's design was the filament. Like earlier renditions of the lightbulb, Swan's filaments were placed in a vacuum tube to minimize their exposure to oxygen, extending their lifespan. Swan received a patent in the UK in 1878, and in February 1879 he demonstrated a working lamp in a lecture in Newcastle, England, according to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1850, English chemist Joseph Swan tackled the cost-effectiveness problem of previous inventors and by 1860 he had developed a lightbulb that used carbonized paper filaments in place of those made of platinum, according to the BBC. But the cost of the batteries used to power Staite's lamps put a damper on the inventor's commercial ventures. In 1848, Englishman William Staite improved the longevity of conventional arc lamps by developing a clockwork mechanism that regulated the movement of the lamps' quick-to-erode carbon rods, according to the Institution of Engineering and Technology. In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficiently designed lightbulb using a coiled platinum filament in place of copper, but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success, according to Interesting Engineering. However in a 2012 lecture for the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, John Meurig Thomas wrote that Davy’s other experiments with lighting led to both the miners' safety lamp, and also street lighting in Paris 'and many other European cities.' The principles behind Davy's arc light were used throughout the 1800s in the development of many other electric lamps and bulbs. This rudimentary lamp burned out quickly and was much too bright for use in a home or workspace. While Davy's arc lamp was certainly an improvement on Volta's stand-alone piles, it still wasn't a very practical source of lighting.

An engraving of Humphry working on an experiment with alkalis (Image credit: Getty / Apic )

Edison 5 facts