Umair Gaines
Before the invention of the incandescent light bulb in the late 1870s, people relied on various sources of light, including fire from wood, oil, and gas, as well as arc lamps. The latter, invented in the early 1800s, used electricity to send a current through two carbon electrodes separated by an air gap, creating a bright light. Arc lamps were used to light streets and large buildings, but they had limitations, such as the need to manually start the arc by touching and separating the carbon rods. Despite the dangers of fire and the uneven quality of light, candles and oil lamps were also commonly used before electricity. Kerosene lamps, in particular, were popular in rural communities due to their ideal illuminating characteristics: they were luminous, smokeless, and non-explosive.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Lighting methods | Fire from wood, oil and gas |
| Arc or glow from electricity | |
| Fluorescence of minerals | |
| Kerosene lamps | |
| Gas lamps | |
| Arc lamps | |
| Incandescent light bulbs | |
| Fluorescent lamps | |
| Mercury-vapour lamps | |
| Tungsten filament for incandescent lightbulbs | |
| Neon lighting | |
| Metal-halide lamps | |
| OLEDs | |
| Sulfur lamps | |
| Fluorescent lightbulbs | |
| LEDs |
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What You'll Learn
Candles, rush lights and fire
Candles, rush lights, and fire were the most common sources of light before the invention of electricity. Candles were made of different materials depending on social class. In Britain, the upper class used candles made of expensive beeswax or spermaceti, a wax extracted from the head cavities of sperm whales. The middle class used cheaper tallow candles, which emitted a feeble light and had an unpleasant smell. The poor often used rush lights, which were made by dipping reeds in animal fat. These were even more uneven and odorous than tallow candles but provided light for about an hour.
Candles were not only used for lighting but also for timekeeping. For example, a candle marked with a series of knots could be used to tell the time by the length of the candle that had burned.
Fire was also used for light and warmth. In the Neolithic period, about 10,000 years ago, people first discovered how to create fire. This knowledge allowed people to control and use light for themselves, providing illumination after dark. Fire was also essential for cooking, heating water, and ironing clothes.
Kerosene lamps and lanterns were widely used, especially in rural areas. They provided a bright, smokeless flame and were relatively safe compared to other options. However, they required regular maintenance, including refilling, wick trimming, and cleaning of the glass chimneys due to soot buildup. Gas lamps and lanterns were also used, providing even brighter light but with the risk of explosion.
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Gas lighting
The process of creating coal gas involved burning coal inside a closed container, separating it into hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and some solid by-products. Gas lighting was much more efficient than candles, and its introduction changed the night-time culture, encouraging people to go out and socialise. Gas lighting was also used in theatres, with the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia becoming the world's first gas-lit theatre in 1816, followed by the Lyceum, Drury Lane, and Covent Garden theatres in 1817.
However, gas lighting had some disadvantages. It required manual lighting and extinguishing each day, and carbon monoxide, a lethal gas, was a byproduct of the combustion reaction. There was also the risk of explosions due to gas accumulation, and both actors and audiences complained about the escaping gas. These issues led to the rapid adoption of electric lighting when it became available in the late 1800s. By 1881, the Savoy Theatre in London had switched to incandescent lighting.
To improve the distribution of gas lighting, flat burners were invented to distribute gas and light evenly to the systems. The fishtail burner was a variation that produced a brighter flame with less heat. The Welsbach burner, based on the Bunsen burner, was another innovation that used a cotton mesh with cerium and thorium to produce three times more light than a naked flame. Despite these advancements, gas lighting for theatres was short-lived, as the advent of the electric light bulb soon overtook it.
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Arc lighting
In the 1850s, Frenchman Victor Serrin designed the first self-starting and self-regulating arc lamp. This was achieved by outfitting arc lamps with electromagnetic regulators that would maintain the arc as the carbon electrodes burned down. Despite this, mechanisms to automate the process of starting the arc did not exist at the time, so it needed to be done manually by touching the carbon rods together and then separating them. This was a significant problem, especially for lamps in hard-to-reach areas or when they went out.
In the late 1870s, suitable electric generators became available, and the practical use of arc lamps began. They were widely used for street and large building lighting and provided one of the first commercial uses for electricity. The light emitted by arc lamps is the closest to that of sunlight of any lamp. However, it was discovered that unenclosed arc lamps produced large amounts of harmful ultraviolet radiation not found in sunlight. This issue was mitigated by encasing the arc in a glass globe, which blocked many of these invisible rays.
Despite their wide use, arc lamps had limitations. The tendency of electric arcs to flicker and hiss was a major problem, caused by oxygen coming into contact with the carbon rods used to create the arc. This issue was addressed in 1895 by Hertha Ayrton, who wrote a series of articles explaining these phenomena. Eventually, in the early 20th century, arc lamps were superseded by incandescent lights, which were safer, more efficient, versatile, and easier to maintain.
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Carbon arc lamps
The carbon arc lamp, invented in the early 1800s by British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy, was one of the first electric lights. The device worked by sending an electric current through two carbon electrodes separated by an air gap. The carbon electrodes are heated and the carbon vaporizes, creating a pit in the anode's surface. The carbon-arc lamp's spectrum is the closest to that of sunlight of any lamp.
The Yablochkov candle is a simple arc lamp without a regulator, but it has the drawback that the arc cannot be restarted and it has a limited lifetime of only a few hours. In the mid-1800s, many people had outfitted arc lamps with electromagnetic regulators that would maintain the arc as the carbon electrodes burned down. However, to start the arc, the carbon rods still had to be touched together briefly and then separated. Mechanisms to automate this process did not exist, so it needed to be done by hand. Frenchman Victor Serrin designed the first self-starting and self-regulating arc lamp in the 1850s.
The arc lamp was widely used to light streets and large buildings starting in the 1870s and continuing for a few decades thereafter. The incandescent bulb, which Thomas Edison began working on in the late 1870s, would eventually replace arc lighting. The Vortek water-wall plasma arc lamp, invented in 1975 by David Camm and Roy Nodwell at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, made the Guinness Book of World Records in 1986 and 1993 as the most powerful continuously burning light source.
Today, the xenon arc lamp, which produces a high-intensity white light, is used in many applications that formerly used the carbon arc, such as movie projectors and searchlights. Carbon-arc lamps are still used where a close approximation of sunlight is needed, for example, for testing materials, paints, and coatings for wear, fading, or deterioration.
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The incandescent light bulb
The development of the incandescent light bulb was influenced by the need for a reliable and economical form of indoor lighting. Prior to the advent of electricity, oil lamps were the predominant source of light after sunset, but the arrival of matches in the mid-1800s revolutionised the use of artificial light. Arc lamps, which produced an intense bright light, were used for street lighting and other outdoor spaces, but their dazzling lights were not suitable for indoor illumination.
In the 1870s, Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan produced commercially viable incandescent lamp bulbs. Edison's early bulbs used a single loop of carbon that glowed when an electric current was passed through it. However, these early bulbs had extremely short lifespans, were too expensive to produce, or used too much energy. The next significant development in the evolution of the incandescent bulb came in 1904 with the invention of the tungsten filament by European inventors. These tungsten filament bulbs offered improved longevity and brighter light compared to their carbon filament counterparts.
Despite their widespread adoption, incandescent bulbs are less efficient than other types of electric lighting. Less than 5% of the energy they consume is converted into visible light, with the majority being released as heat. Due to their higher energy consumption and the development of more efficient lighting alternatives, incandescent light bulbs are being phased out in many parts of the world.
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Frequently asked questions
Before the advent of electricity, people relied on various sources of light, including candles, oil lamps, and gas lighting. Candles were made from different materials like beeswax, spermaceti, tallow, or animal fat, depending on one's economic status.
Candles and oil lamps produced a dimmer and smokier flame compared to modern lighting. They required regular maintenance, such as refilling, wick trimming, and cleaning of soot from glass chimneys.
The transition to electric lighting began in the 19th century with the development of arc lamps and incandescent light bulbs. Humphry Davy invented the arc lamp in the early 1800s, and Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan patented the carbon-thread incandescent lamp in 1879.
Electric lighting offered several advantages over gas lighting in terms of economy, convenience, and safety. Gas lighting could be hazardous due to the risk of explosions, while electric lights provided a safer and more reliable source of illumination.
The absence of electricity made tasks more time-consuming and labor-intensive. For example, washing clothes involved heating water on a stove, scrubbing them on a board, wringing them out, and hanging them to dry. Ironing clothes required building a hot fire in the stove to heat the iron.
