Tungsten and the Invention of the Electric Light Bulb

The first light was easy, Genesis 1:3 says “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (KJV)” God spoke it into existence. But the making of the first electric light was not so simple. If you ask most people, they would probably say that Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb. If they do, then they are wrong. The light bulb came about through a series of inventions that ultimately ended with a glass enclosed glowing filament, what we would consider a true light bulb.

The story started in 1809 when Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making it the first arc lamp. In 1820 Warren De la Rue enclosed a platinum coil in an evacuated tube. This light worked but the platinum was too expensive to be practical. In the years following a number of inventors developed different systems using charcoal or carbonized fibers as filaments. Finally, in 1854, Henricg Globel, a German watchmaker, invented the first true light bulb. He used a carbonized bamboo filament placed inside a glass bulb. Edison actually developed his light bulb from work he did based on the 1875 patent for a light bulb he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.

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Edison work was mainly around the development of a longer lasting filament in combination with removing oxygen from the sealed bulb. He experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. He discovered a filament that lasted 40 hours and he demonstrated it publicly in 1879. He went further and also developed the first electric utility in Manhattan to power his lights. His success in spreading the use of his invention made him the most most well known of the “inventors” of the light bulb. Edison was a prolific inventor, earning 1093 patents in the United States alone during his lifetime.

Filaments made of many different materials were tried until a long lasting and inexpensive filament material was discovered. Edison tried metal and carbonized materials. His first success was with carbonized cotton which lasted 40 hours. He later produced a filament from bamboo fibers that lasted 1200 hours. Different metal filaments were made from the group 5 metallic elements Molybdenum (atomic number 42), Ruthenium (44) and Rhodium (45) and the group 6 metals Tantalum (73), Tungsten (74), Osmium (76), Iridium (77) and Platinum (78). In 1910, William David Coolidge (1873-1975) invented a Tungsten filament which lasted even longer than the older filaments and is much like what is used today.

Tungsten is a dense, hard, rare metal found naturally only in chemical compounds. Of all the elements, Tungsten’s melting point is second only to carbon. Tungsten is the only metal from the third transition series that is known to occur in biomolecules, where it is used in a few species of bacteria. It is the heaviest element known to be used by any living organism. Because of its hardness, Tungsten is used in ordinary small arms bullets designed to penetrate body armor as well as military artillery uses. Its density, similar to that of gold, allows Tungsten to be used in jewelry as an alternative to gold or platinum. Tungsten filaments contain very small amounts of potassium, silicon, and aluminum oxides to improve their life and durability.

The invention of the electric light, and the development of a central electric utility changed our world dramatically. But in the end we will not need this light for God will be our light.

John 8:12 – “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ (NIV)”

Revelation 22:5 – “There will be no more night. They (the saints) will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (NIV)”

Read more at God’s Chemistry Set

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