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The incandescent light bulb was invented and continued to progress from the early 1800s. Prior to this, basic candles and oil lamps, and other similar lighting was utilized in everyday life. The journey of the incandescent lamp began in 1809 when Humphrey Davy created the first arc lamp by inducing current in between two charcoal strips using a high powered battery. This was followed up through the 1880s, with various incandescent light bulbs being produced by different groups and individuals. All had the same thought of creating a light bulb which contained an element with a high melting point, such as platinum, inside an evacuated chamber.

Various high melting point materials had been utilized to try to produce a practical, cost effective incandescent lamp with a long life. The theory was, the higher the temperature, the brighter the light. Consequently the greater the melting point of the material, the much more successfully the lamp would function at high temperatures, resulting in the emission of a brighter ligh. The element would also have less gas particles to react with within an evacuated chamber resulting in a longer life span. Many individuals produced light bulbs in this way, yet the struggle was to create one which lasted for significant periods of time. The first incandescent lamp which lasted a practical length of time was developed by Edison and Swan in 1879, which lasted around 13 and a half hours. Nevertheless, in 1880 Edison produced a filament which lasted for as much as 1200 hours - the best life-span by far.

An incandescent lamps efficiency is focused upon reaching high filament temperatures, but with a minimal amount of heat loss and degrading. The greater the amount of heat that is lost and also the faster the filament degrades, the much less effective the light bulb is. Edison used carbon filaments inside his early incandescent light bulbs as this has the highest melting temperature, having said that it evaporates at a rapid rate, resulting in a shorter life span. The life span was increased by the filament starting to be operated in a lower temperate, however the brightness of the lamp also decreased.

Within the early 1900s, the more contemporary tungsten filament incandescent lightbulb was devised by William Coolidge along with the General Electric Company. This is the light bulb we know nowadays used for indoor or outdoor lighting. This element truly enhanced efficiency of light bulbs because of its strength, pliability, workability, high melting point and low evaporation rate. The high melting point of tungsten resulted in a really bright light, although it continued to evaporate fairly quickly. Numerous inert gases such as nitrogen were added to light bulbs which decreased the rate of evaporation to improve filament life, nevertheless, this also affected the temperature of the filament, resulting in a dimmer light. Making a coil from the filament was proven to have good results in maintaining a higher temperature, thus having a brighter light. Coiled filaments are still utilized in incandescent lamps today.

Incandescent light bulbs even now shed a lot of heat, with only 4-6% of the energy being supplied to bulbs actually being converted to light, up to 96% is wasted as heat. Therefore energy saving light bulbs, also known as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were eventually produced.

The original fluorescent lamp was invented within the late 1890s. Since that time, various companies and people have developed on this idea to create practical fluorescent lamps which were originally sold in 1938. The shape of the fluorescent lamp started as a lengthy fixture, which then progressed into circular and u-shaped lamps and then into the three-dimensional spiral (helical). Although the helical lamp was developed within the 1970s, the design never go ahead, and was later copied by other people within the mid 90s when is was sold commercially. Eco light bulbs were introduced by large businesses like Philips and Osram within the 80s, which included the very first effective replacement for screw-in incandescent lamps with an integral ballast, and the initial CFL to include an electronic ballast.

Original eco lamps often ended updull and flickered as the technologies were still to be developed. These days they really are a new generation. They're incredibly effective, saving as much as 80% of energy, extremely bright and have a really lengthy life span, lasting about 8x longer than tradition incandescent lamps.

The journey of incandescent light bulbs used for indoor or garden lighting has now come to an close, with all wattages soon to be banned within the United Kingdom, however the journey for energy saving light bulbs and LEDs is only just beginning !