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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, along with other simple lighting was utilized in everyday life. The journey of the incandescent lamp began in 1809 when Humphrey Davy produced the first arc lamp by inducing current in between two charcoal strips using a high powered battery. This was followed up throughout to the 1880s, with numerous incandescent light bulbs becoming produced by different groups and people. 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.

Numerous high melting point elements were used to try to produce a practical, cost efficient incandescent lamp with a long life. The theory was, the greater the temperature, the brighter the light. Consequently the higher the melting point of the material, the more effectively 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 inside an evacuated chamber resulting in a longer life span. Many people produced light bulbs in this way, however the struggle was to create 1 which lasted for substantial periods of time. The very 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 very 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 more heat which is lost and the quicker the filament degrades, the less efficient the light bulb is. Edison used carbon filaments inside his early incandescent light bulbs as this has the highest melting temperature, however 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 today used for indoor or outdoor lighting. This element really enhanced efficiency of light bulbs due to its strength, pliability, workability, high melting point and low evaporation rate. The high melting point of tungsten resulted in a really bright light, even though it continued to evaporate fairly quickly. Various inert gases such as nitrogen were added to the light bulbs which decreased the rate of evaporation to increase filament life, however, this also affected the temperature of the filament, resulting in a dimmer light. Creating a coil from the filament was proven to have good results in maintaining a higher temperature, thus sustaining a brighter light. Coiled filaments are still utilized in incandescent lamps today.

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

The original fluorescent lamp was invented within the late 1890s. Since that time, numerous 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 long fixture, which then progressed into circular and u-shaped lamps and then into the three-dimensional spiral (helical). Even though 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. Energy light bulbs had been introduced by large businesses such as Philips and Osram in the 80s, which included the first effective replacement for screw-in incandescent lamps with an integral ballast, and the first CFL to consist of an electronic ballast.

Original eco lamps often ended updull and flickered as the technology were still to be developed. These days they truly are a new generation. They're incredibly effective, saving as much as 80% of energy, very bright and have a very long life span, lasting around 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, nevertheless the journey for energy saving light bulbs and LEDs is only just beginning !