Electric light patent from Collection of United States patents granted to Thomas A. Edison, 1869-1884.

Electric light patent

Collection of United States patents granted to Thomas A. Edison, 1869-1884.

The light bulb is an invention that you likely interact with several times every day of your life. The man who is credited with inventing the first practical “incandescent” light bulb was Thomas Alva Edison in 1879. When a light bulb is incandescent, it means that it emits light as a result of being heated. Although there were several versions of earlier lightbulbs before Edison’s, his design worked so efficiently that it made it economically possible to work for a lot of people. In October of 1878, Edison filed a patent for his practical incandescent light bulb, seen here. But that was just the first step. Like all good inventors, he continued working on his design, making as many improvements as he could. A year later he filed another design using a carbon filament, and then a few months after, one that used a bamboo filament which could last over 1200 hours. By 1880, the Edison Electric Light Company began marketing light bulbs, and we’ve been using them since!