The Electric Light Bulb Was Invented Centuries Before Edison

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Thomas Edison often gets credit for the invention of the light bulb, but a good argument can be made that they were around centuries earlier in the form of barometric light.
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Sources:
Sources:
www.aps.org/publications/apsn...
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt...
www.nature.com/articles/34617
www.jstor.org/stable/228490?s...
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[@SciShow]

Visit brilliant.org/scishow/ to get started learning STEM for free. The first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription and a 30-day free trial.

[@RoyvanLierop]

You should do a video about the Millikan experiment of 1909. Fascinating experimental setup.

[@15muffinz]

I love Reese!

[@joshuagrahm3607]

We should really split it up into “who first explained the theory” and “who got it viable commercially” because honestly, they’re both really impressive accomplishments

[@FozzyBBear]

Typically the person we recognize as the inventor is the person who perfected and commercialized it, not the many who had tinkered with the technology but never sold any. Edison, Bell, Benz, Marconi, Baird, etc.

[@VashVicious2]

Hey, you're not allowed to be logical in historical communities. Stop it. Lmao

[@jacksonwinter5110]

"Who first discovered it" versus "who first exploited it for capital".

[@canis2020]

Agreed

[@markmuller7962]

@@FozzyBBear Since when an inventor/scientist is required to be a businessman?

[@Rubrickety]

I've watched a _lot_ of math and science videos, and various Bernoullis come up all the time (they were a whole thing), and yet I think this is the first time I've ever heard a non-Anglicized pronunciation of the name. Kudos!

[@blacktimhoward4322]

I just say it how the Car Talk guys said it

[@Anuchan]

I was taught in school that Edison's contribution was using tungsten, the only substance known for years that could glow bright enough and long enough for practical use. His attempts of over 200 substances is a testament to dedication. This is even mentioned in the movie National Treasure.

[@malavoy1]

That came later. Originally he baked tar onto thread to make the filament making carbon the first useable material.

[@BadOompaloompa79]

Well if it was in National Treasure it must be true lol.

[@camoTiara]

That would depend on the meaning of "practical use".

[@Anuchan]

@@camoTiara What's your definition?

[@thehikingviking2049]

My understanding was that Edison's achievement was pumping the air out of light bulbs. It is trivial to send electricity through a filament in order to make it glow, but the high temperature would cause it to oxidize and break down rapidly. From what I've read, he was inspired by the techniques used to create charcoal, which involves smothering the burning material so very little oxygen can reach it. At this point though, there is as much folklore as fact, so I have no idea how accurate that is.

[@enigma1863]

Edison was like the Steve Jobs of his day. Not inventing anything himself but making inventions marketable to the masses

[@j10001]

💯 Lots of engineering, ingenuity, and “micro inventions” (if I can call them that) along the path of commercialization. But not the original scientist or inventor.

[@shininio]

That’s called innovation and Edison and Jobs understood they way it works better than anyone in their generation. The car was invented and patented by Eduard Delamare Debouteville. Nobody recognizes him as the inventor of the car because he never built one and never turned his invention into innovation. Karl Benz on the other hand didt it. Have you heard about a company called Mercedes Benz?

[@josepheridu3322]

All technological inventions are based on previous discoveries.

[@oligoprimer]

Edison invented lots of things. For the light bulb , his invention was the first commercially viable filament (i.e., economically viable, sufficient light, sufficient lifespan), derived from a frond of a tropical palm, suitably carbonized. The filament was the bottleneck that Edison shattered.

[@chcebs8662]

So true Well explained

[@heronimousbrapson863]

In the UK, it is asserted that Joseph Swan invented the light bulb. Edison, apparently, bought the patent for the idea from a Canadian inventor who didn't have the money to develop it himself.

[@LydiaTarine12]

And eventually there was EdiSwan for the win after the two talked things out. The tricky thing with Edison is the eternal question of 'did he invent it or did he just own the patent,' given the business that led to him being Tesla's employer for a time.

[@jesarablack1661]

@@LydiaTarine12 There is literally only a single Edison "invention" that can be proven to be his own work and not copied, stolen, or taking the credit for someone else's work. The Automatic Telegraph Repeater.

[@paradiselost9946]

@@jesarablack1661 thermionic emission? my favourite as he deemed it useless and passed it by...

[@johngalt97]

Edison's contribution was hiring a bunch of smart guys to do the work for which he took full credit. Its just how things were done back then, including university professors taking credit for their students' work 'on behalf of the school' (and themselves).

[@krashd]

@@johngalt97 It is still done today in almost every research laboratory anywhere, if you invent something while working for IBM or Sanyo or Dyson or whomever the patent will automatically belong to the company since you are just a paid contractor being graciously allowed to use their facilities. Only once you become an associate can you apply to patent your creations under your own name.

[@General12th]

Hi Reid! This was a really cool story! I never knew about barometric lighting.

[@Mike28625]

As an electric guitar player who loves his tube amps, i owe a debt of gratitude to these old scientists. Classic mercury tubes are still on the cutting edge of musical technology but obsolete everywhere else lol.

[@paradiselost9946]

why on earth do you think they have mercury in them? its called "vacuum tube", not "mercury vapour filled tube"...

[@Mike28625]

@@paradiselost9946 they're at vacuum when they're cold and the mercury is liquid. That's why they have to warm up before they function properly. You see, it isn't until the mercury vaporizes that the tiny input signal can be conducted up into the highly charged mercury cloud and then retrieved back by the internal antenna as a much more powerful signal that can then be sent on to the speakers. It's the charged mercury cloud that makes it all work. That's also why they glow. Charged mercury gas. Look it up if you don't believe me.

[@Mike28625]

@@paradiselost9946 it's also why they warn you not to breath the magic smoke when one blows up. It's highly toxic.

[@eric_has_no_idea]

You will not find mercury in most tubes. Something like a 6L6 or 12ax7 or other triode-tube will be flushed with a noble gas before having a vacuum drawn. The glow will be from the black-body / emissive radiation of the grid being heated. There is no mercury. Some older (~100yrs) tubes used mercury, those are really rare now though. They are referred to as mercury-rectifier tubes if I remember right. I found online some type-83 tubes may contain mercury still, but it's rare.

[@Mike28625]

@@eric_has_no_idea So the boneheads figured out that mercury was too toxic earlier than i give them credit for. my original point stands. Those old guys were the ones who led to the invention of rectifier tubes. That's all i wanted to say in the first place.

[@SamChaneyProductions]

Very cool though I wish you had mentioned that mercury vapor glows with ultraviolet light when excited by electricity and that is how fluorescent lights and neon signs work (the red-orange tubes use neon but all the other colors use mercury vapor)

[@Dx-Dm]

I love the way you described this piece of science history :) great job!

[@TheRealSkeletor]

Okay, but did anyone ask Picard how many lights he saw?

[@StarCrusher.]

I like you

[@chrisowenssff4876]

Four.

[@jaybingham3711]

Fantastic presentation. Concise. Informative. Kudos.

[@Kennephone]

I've never heard of this before, I always thought that the arc light was the first electric light. I guess it's just the first practical* one.

[@LadyAnuB]

First ones to have the power to throw light a long distance which is why it's used as the introduction scene for all episodes of Connections

[@barrydysert2974]

🏅 The best thing i've ever seen from this channel! More on electric topics please !:-)⚡

[@rab52764]

No, Edison did not invent the incandescent light bulb, but he did perfect it.

[@rudolfsykora3505]

Carbonised cotton string , one of his engineers

[@MosaicF]

Who wants to see a Nile Red episode of him making a barometric light?

[@wswanberg]

First SciShow video where I knew most of it beforehand, from watching James Burke back in the 70s.

[@AlbertaGeek]

Connections was a great show.

[@LuigiNotaro]

Or TBBT 😂

[@reynastrange2828]

I’m very impressed and this very cool, but I’m concerned about how much mercury was handled in these early light bulbs (assuming that they did not protect themselves from the mercury)

[@loke6664]

I think the mercury they used in medicines of the time was a way worse problem. Paracelsus had the great idea it would cure most things and therefor people ingested it. Yes, inhaling vapors from mercury is bad for you, particularly if you do it often but it isn't quite as dangerous as your school teacher would claim if it happens one time. If you ingest it, it sticks into your bones and will stay there, screwing up your nervous system. Since mercury based medicines seems to actually help a little with the symptoms of syphilis (or at least it seems to feel like it helps a bit) a lot of people used it for that. I don't think there is any numbers on how many people it killed but it was certainly far more then a few while scientists getting sick of it was probably not very common. Another kind of people who got exposed to mercury (and arsenic) was hat makers, "mad as a hatter" comes from how they got screwed up by that and they generally were a lot less careful about the stuff then scientists. Besides, calling these "light bulbs" is a bit much, they were more an an interesting experiment then an actual source of light and couldn't been very common. A far more common use of mercury was the thermometer who still often had mercury in it when I was a kid in the 1970s. Cleaning up a broken thermometer was far more likely to get you exposed to mercury then this since it had an actual practical application and eventually became something most people owned.

[@secularmonk5176]

@@loke6664 Good summary! The mercury thermometers of "barely yesteryear" are another example of how much more risk was accepted in everyday life not so long ago. And regarding mad hatters, they spent all day breathing in the FUMES of BOILING mercury which was used to treat the felt in top hats ... that's why the neurological effects were so obvious in that industry.

[@loke6664]

@@secularmonk5176 Thanks. I kinda think it also show us that we might worry a bit too much over some stuff today, like if you feed a rat 100 times the legal dose of a certain food coloring it develops cancer and things like that. We kinda went from taking arsenic as medicine and drinking radioactive water (it was a whole thing in the 30s, supposed to be super healthy but gave you cancer in a few years) to getting terrified that anything besides water could give us cancer in a 100 years time. The thing with the mercury thermometers was that they were fine as long as you disposed them properly and kept them away from small children. You accidentally dropping it wasn't really that dangerous as long as you got rid of it properly instead of just throwing it in your trash bin, letting it stay in there until trash day and then let the poor guy at the dump get the problem. Mercury is dangerous, but small exposure are not likely to affect you unless you get it into your body somehow (ingesting it or cutting yourself on the broken thermometer). So I don't think it is something a normal person today should be scared of, there might still be an old mercury thermometer in a box in your shed or cellar but if you break it, don't panic and focus on disposing it properly.

[@nottelling7438]

Mercury comes in many forms. From what I have heard, the silvery liquid form is not as scary as some people think. (I still wouldn't play with it without higher confidence in these claims.) I have heard that the metallic form shown and discussed in the video just doesn't absorb that well or react that strongly with the human body, which limits the danger. I have also heard a story of a chemist who got a bit of an organic chemical containing mercury on their glove. The chemical passed through the glove, was absorbed through the skin, and killed the scientist, so sometimes mercury is way MORE scary than most people think.

[@loke6664]

@@nottelling7438 Yeah, that sounds like an urban legend. Now, hydrofloric acid could do that depending on the material of the glove but even then you would have to get 1 dl of it on you and it would take 24 hours before you died, there are treatments for it even if you would get a nasty scar. You have other mercury myths like the "Soviet red mercury" that supposedly makes an extremely deadly (and sometimes explosive) ammunition. Mercury would be needed in huge quantities to kill you quickly, the scary thing with it is that it collects in your bones and that it screws with your nerves which is very bad. So if you were exposed to it 20 years ago it would still be in your bones.

[@mdjohar]

Good one. Thanks

[@bbbenj]

I didn't know about that, thanks 👍

[@sinebar]

Just think how much you could blow their minds if we could travel back to the time of Newton.

[@benjaminbaumgart3935]

One of my many in-depth plans for if I ever get a time machine is going back to the medieval era and involves a lot of LEDs, drones, and tinfoil

[@krashd]

@@benjaminbaumgart3935 You're going to throw a rave for the Knights Templar?

[@kurtwicklund8901]

The way I was taught was Edison came with with the first lamp which would last long enough to make electric light feasible.

[@mho...]

yeah he "just" made a lab-experiment viable for mass market production!

[@krashd]

@@mho... Joseph Swan had a different opinion.

[@alexanderdeburdegala4609]

The picture of the child in the static balloon picture has some truly terrifying teeth...jeesh

[@marijandesin8226]

This is why I'm still subscribed More science history please 👏👏

[@2010joen]

@ 4:20. "Frictional Electricity" is better known to science as "triboelectric charge".

[@xodiaq]

😂

[@mho...]

People well-versed in a Field, the Bane of KZbinrs everywhere

[@tacobeartaco7140]

For real, when this started from autoplay, I thought I was about to here Pen and Teller do magic. 😅

[@rickseiden1]

Now I'm curious. What did people call static electricity before the discovery of electricity? They must have been getting static shocks, but what did they think caused them and what did they call it?

[@Dog-Lover36]

According to online research, around 600 BC, Thales of Miletus wrote about amber becoming charged by rubbing. He was describing what people called static electricity based upon present day.

[@Trip_Ts]

amber effect because In the early modern English period, people must have dealt with static electrical discharge for thousands of years, well before they began to understand the principles of electricity. The word “electricity” comes from the Greek name for amber, “elektron” Originally, the word described substances that, like amber, attract other substances when rubbed. this is from bing AI answer..

[@The8BitPianist]

@@Trip_Ts Maybe lead with it being an AI answer in the future

[@heronimousbrapson863]

Witchcraft?

[@palebluedot7435]

@@heronimousbrapson863 Lady: walking in wool socks on bear rug Husband kisses her Zap Husband: we’re gonna need a whole lot of fire wood 😔

[@everybodyyogastudio212]

Poliniere was busy makin the first glow sticks 😂 teenagers would be forever grateful 🎉

[@BeautifulBeansCheese]

So cool

[@MAGAman-uy7wh]

This whole video reminds me of Glen Larson's depiction of the invention of the wheel. A stone age man was using stone tools to form a circle with a central hole while other stone age men stood there and one said, "hey, look what Thag do).

[@mho...]

There is a Difference between "making something work" and creating a Product for mass production & Distribution! ps:🖖 1:08 made me wonder: did Picard ever do the vulkan greeting? i dont think so actually 🤔

[@andyvoltin9321]

I'd like to think someone who caught firefly's in a jar are just the forgotten few

[@abraxasjinx5207]

Penn Jillette has a vocal doppelganger.

[@geekdivaherself]

I want to know about the middle one at 0:25 because it looks _really cool!_ 🎉

[@joellel3527]

I like your shirt!

[@gabrielhunter3759]

cool, the first discovery of "jiggle physics"

[@IrishCarBomb77]

I feel like I have so many more questions

[@InterestingWorldLove]

Not even close to a light bulb as you wanted us to think. What am I thinking right now?

[@fariesz6786]

_•Ancient Egyptian light bulb intensifies•_

[@shininio]

There is a difference between a discovery, an invention and innovation. They are usually done by different people and the development work of someone is usually built on the work of people before. The same thing happened with the steam engine, it was the progressive advance of many people until someone could develop a practical way to use it. Edison was one of the few who understood developments are not innovation until they are properly improved and render an advantage. He understood innovation better than anyone in his generation.

[@matthewsermons7247]

Wow, this is a Heavy Metal episode!

[@andy56duky]

More metal than the bottom 10% of metal fans

[@NextNate03]

Metallica

[@kiddfpv]

I wish you guys would start putting images/videos of real life examples of the stuff you talk about in the videos

[@sassa82]

Brilliant!🔮💡

[@taylortimbrook2030]

My first thought was Lewis Howard Latimer 😅

[@stevensines7026]

So they were researching early forms of the "mercury vapor lamp" that is commonly used today on city streets and farms today.

[@andyvoltin9321]

Would a thinner glass cause a brighter light?

[@lancethrustworthy]

Would have liked and shared this if you had at least displayed the year of each discovery/breakthrough when mentioned. The person's name and the year would have been even better. Reiteration helps memorization. Put those barely known names and years out there. Let them gain the notoriety they deserve. Make strong the chronological order of development of items we rely on today. Forward, ever.

[@OculusUniversale]

I don't think "notoriety" is the right word... Fame? Credit?

[@mysteriousdude280]

I've just learned that i was pronouncing Bernoulli from Bernoulli's principle wrong since learning it in high school

[@Wanttofanta]

“Captain, Jean-Luc Picard. Of the USS, Enterprise.” Please tell me people remember YTMND

[@chrisowenssff4876]

What did Jean Picard say when he turned on the lights? Engage!

[@julesbower762]

We know... His team, perfected it. James Watt did not invent the steam engine. He just made it worth building and using them by perfecting them.

[@HellOnWheel]

Where can I get that flamingo shirt?

[@ClockworkAvatar]

not anymore lightbulb than a fluorescent tube is a lightbulb.

[@bettyswallocks6411]

Obviously, the lightbulb was invented by the first person to have a sudden, enlightening & inspirational thought. 🤔 💡

[@mrbaab5932]

I wonder where is the oldest continuously operated light bulb.

[@lady_draguliana784]

this is why there's a push for calling edison the "inventor of the Commercially Viable Electric Lightbulb" he's the Henry Ford of Lightbulbs here...

[@Kelticfury]

According to the History Channel it was some priests of Hathor in ancient Egypt that got there first. Or was it Aliens, I can't remember. You know the History Channel lol. Edit: I was today years old when I learned that shaking mercury makes it glow.

[@joegagliardi3984]

Edison was good at improving inventions, not coming up with them. Menlo Park had the resources to do just that.

[@Ryyyanbow]

Was mercury just lying around somewhere and people just happened to come across it in olden times?

[@dominiqueubersfeld2282]

Everybody knows the light bulb was invented in Ancient Egypt by Ramses II. It was powered by Giza Pyramids.

[@awake2late]

So did Gean Roddonbery name my favorite captain after him 🤔

[@lauram9478]

❤

[@xodiaq]

I’m just glad there isn’t some indignant idiot barking about the Dendera Light.

[@richardl6751]

At 1:44 Bur-new-lee.

[@cuttwice3905]

Félix is pronounced fay-Leeks. Bernoulli is bear-New-lee

[@lukehawksbee]

And Hauksbee is pronounced... Oh no wait, he got that one right (given that he has an American accent).

[@jenniferlindsey2015]

Can you do a video on the electric universe theory?

[@donkink3114]

Professor Dave Explains did one.....

[@TheDanEdwards]

"the electric universe theory" - sigh....

[@maksphoto78]

There's no such thing. There's the Plasma Cosmology, and a wacky anti-science cult that followed it.

[@DSAK55]

Triboelectric effect

[@kingjames4886]

and flight was invented before the wright brothers... but edison made it a thing.

[@gedalyahreback2133]

PICARD!

[@accaciagame1706]

I knew it has something to do with france.

[@user-sd3ik9rt6d]

Success had many fathers

[@ramloganfracic5761]

Thank you for sharing. your knowledge the world Blessings ❤❤❤❤

[@pinkace]

4:21 oh god get that kid some braces, this is an emergency!!

[@66adaptable]

Can you guys do a video on medical marijuana and if they treat deseas like Parkinson’s?

[@MonochromeWench]

Emissions from Mercury atoms, if only they had a nice high quality white phosphor, they might have had some decent light being produced, they wouldn't have known about the UV emissions this thing would have generated that they couldn't see,

[@JeffinBville]

If you read Benjamin Franklin you'll see science in his time was - just on the edge of getting it right .

[@walterfristoe4643]

The name Bernoulli is pronounced differently than the way you pronounced it. The double ls (Bernou[ll]are pronounced. I googled it.

[@andrebartels1690]

So mercury rectifiers produce the exact same light that they saw?

[@othmankosni]

Can built one please

[@cerulyse]

Chatgpt doesn't recognise barometric light but it's in Wikipedia and bard does 🤓

[@patrickmeehan6856]

Um, mystery established in "one evening in the late 1670s" and Edison establishes his incandescent electric light bulb in 1879. Technically, that is "centuries" of time, but the title of this video WAY overstates the timeline, especially considering that the bulk of this video deals with discoveries from 1705.

[@Sq7Arno]

Is it just me, or was there not even one little bit of stock footage showing what the effect looks like? I mean I looked it up and it wasn't very bright. So... Not sure about calling it a lightbulb purely on the grounds that it's not very practical at all. And it was experimental. Not a useable device. Otherwise you might as well call experiments with phosphorescent liquids in flasks "lightbulbs". What we normally refer to as a lightbulb. Is more specifically an "incandescent" lightbulb. i.e Some material heated to incandescence, enclosed in a glass enclosure. There were many incremental steps to get to the first useful ones over centuries by various people. The first was to just heat a wire to incandescence. Then using electricity to supply the energy for heating. Then came using inert gases and vacuum to prevent the wires from getting destroyed. And finally cheaper filament materials (rather than platinum, iridium and the like). So many people were working on the problem with varying success, but by that time the general concept was well established. Edison did come up with a practical, economical design that he got a patent for. Before that point they were more or less curious and so expensive that only the wealthy could afford them. So it can be said Edison and his team invented the "cheap and practical incandescent" light bulb.

[@arafatsefu4239]

So basically Thomas Edinson « christophe Colombed » the sh!!t out of the lightbulb

[@USBEN.]

Edison the thief. Nikola Tesla the real creator.

[@BlackMidalia]

Completely agree.

[@peterq1978]

it was Joseph Swan who invented the electric light bulb, in his Hydro electric powered home in Northumberland, England.

[@jamesbaker6857]

I think you're getting mixed up with Armstrong, cragside hall was hydroelectricly powered

[@peterq1978]

ah yea, still Swan though

[@katbairwell]

Had to restart the video, as was too enamoured with the flaming-mingoes shirt to listen properly! I've no idea how it took 40+ years to realise I have ADHD...

[@marilynlucero9363]

I did.

[@Ulthar_Cat]

Very good 💜 screw edison XD

[@uplink-on-yt]

Wait. Did nobody get accused of being a witch in this story?

[@georgesheffield1580]

Edison only somewhat perfected the incandesent light . He took all of the credit for aall of his scientist and engineers .

[@houndofzoltan]

Swan invented the light bulb of course, and Percy Pilcher invented the airplane.

[@SwipeKun]

Meanwhile Tesla be like : 🗿

[@chevyboyforlife4234]

Everyone already knows Edison didn't invent the light bulb..he invented the first viable light bulb

[@krashd]

...with his partner Joseph Swan (who did the actual inventing bit).

[@sstack83]

Glow bulbs*

[@samuelt5131]

Edison had better PR

[@BengalBoy16]

Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, he took a patent from a designer to sell the product >:(

[@user-jm9iw6mm9o]

Nk

[@mikamekaze]

God I hope the dendera conspiracy theorists don't find this video

[@MAGAman-uy7wh]

I guess that we are now "forced" to concede that Edison did not invent the light bulb but are constrained to say that Edison invented the first "PRACTICAL" light bulb. Many knew that passing electrical current through a thin metallic coil would cause it to glow, briefly before evaporating. Edison's work was to solve the coil from breaking down due to the heat generated and yield a sustainable light source. All of the experiments attributing to the "invention" of a light bulb are merely observations of an effect. Edison invented the light bulb.

[@krashd]

Joseph Swan would not agree with you.

[@CtrlOptDel]

Serious question: Did Edison actually invent _anything,_ or did he just take credit for other people’s ideas he jumped-in & developed first?

[@argentandroid5732]

Edison did invent a few things. I believe he may have actually invented the bamboo carbon filament for the light bulb, but yeah a lot of things that Edison is credited with were actually invented by people that worked for his company. Basically he was the Elon Musk of his day.

[@musiclover4864]

Nikola Tesla has entered the chat (I am a Tesla defender until I die)

[@badbiker666]

Edison didn't invent the incandescent light bulb. He never claimed to. What he did was perfect the light bulb, figure out how to mass produce it, and create the infrastructure necessary to make light bulbs popular in the home. But people believe he invented it because, well, they're stupid. It's like the morons that believe Henry Ford invented the automobile. Of course he didn't. He didn't even perfect it. He streamlined the manufacture process so that cars could be made quicker and cheaper and, therefore, available to everyday people. Before the Model T, building cars, including Fords, was very labor intensive, which made them expensive. Basically toys for the rich. Ford was visiting a slaughterhouse and saw how live pigs were herded into the abattoir on one end, and sausages, bacon, and ham were shipping out the other end. He was inspired to invent the moving assembly line. Compared to most other cars of the day, the Model T was a POS, but it was cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, and cheap to repair, so people bought them.