Thomas Edison was a confusing man. A successful person who only went to school for three months but holds 1093 patents. A true American who has left traces in the hearts of almost all Chinese children. It is no exaggeration to say that if you pick up a random student on the streets of China, nine out of ten students can vividly tell the story of Edison's invention of the light bulb:

Edison made up his mind to invent a light bulb very early on. A better light than a kerosene lamp. So he struggled to find materials that could radiate electricity, but the effects of these filament materials were not ideal. Edison tried more than 6,000 materials and conducted more than 7,000 experiments to invent the light bulb. Finally, we found a filament material that could last for 45 hours, marking the invention of the great electric light!

This confirms Edison's famous saying: "Genius is ninety-nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration."

But the biggest part of the story is The loophole is: How did Edison, who had not graduated from elementary school, know that electric current can make conductors glow?

This is also the reason why the story focuses on the 99% of Edison’s sweat and avoids talking about the 1% of inspiration in the early stage. The truth of the matter is that Edison did not have even 1% of the inspiration for the invention of the electric light. He "borrowed" the idea of ????inventing the electric light from the Englishman Joseph Swan.

Sir Joseph Swann was a well-known British chemist, physicist and inventor. In his early years, he worked as an apprentice in a pharmacy in his hometown and studied with a pharmacist. He has been engaged in chemistry since he was apprenticed. But Swann's most personally interesting research was the mysterious connection between electricity and light. As early as 1848, the 20-year-old Swan began to develop electric lamps and made a major breakthrough in the selection of filament materials.

Before Swann, some inventors had tried to use metal as filament, the more common one being platinum filament. However, the cost of platinum wire is very high, and its melting point of 1768°C (1773°C) results in poor durability, making it not a good choice. Swann tried to use carbon to replace the platinum wire. The melting point of carbon is as high as 3500°C and it is not easy to melt due to the heat after being powered on. But carbon also has a big weakness-it burns easily in the air and needs to be isolated from oxygen to work for a long time.

Swann's vacuum carbon filament electric lamp plan was finalized.

He cut a kind of cardboard into an arc like a horseshoe, and then baked it in a crucible to make carbonized carbon resistance wire.

Connect both ends of the carbon wire to wires and seal it in a bell-shaped glass jar, and extract as much air as possible from the inside. The wires are connected to the two electrodes of the battery, and the carbon filament emits bright light. This is the most primitive incandescent lamp.

Although Swann's light bulb burned out after only lighting for 13.5 hours, this did not prevent it from becoming a great breakthrough. That year, Edison was only 1 year old.

Due to the immature front-end basic technology of electric lights at that time, the battery used for power supply had low voltage and poor durability, and vacuum technology had not been developed. Swann's electric lamps not only had little practical value, but also had poor performance. Poor vacuum technology always caused the carbon filaments to burn out quickly. To this end, he has been improving his invention and has been studying it for 12 years. Since he was still unable to break through the bottleneck of durability, he completely gave up his experimental work in 1860. This year, Edison was already a 13-year-old newsboy.

Swann, who stopped working on electric light research, has not been idle. He has dabbled in a wide range of fields and has become a well-known figure in the local academic circle. He rose from assistant to partner in a photographic plate-making company and also improved the wet-plate collodion photography method of the day. Swann designed a dry photographic plate that replaced the cumbersome steps of preparing a nitrocellulose solution on site with nitrocellulose plastic. Fifteen years later, this technology inspired Eastman in the United States, who later founded Kodak.

It was not until 1875 that Swann resumed his original research on electric lights.

There are two reasons. One is because the British physicist Crooks improved the vacuuming technology in order to study the phenomenon of vacuum discharge. Another is that Belgian engineer Gram and Germany's Siemens created a DC generator with outstanding performance. The improvement of these two technologies gave Swann hope. He only needed to work hard on the technology of making filaments.

Swann's lamp did not burn due to the residual oxygen in the bulb, but it exposed another problem. The resistance of the carbonized filament is too low, and the original use of battery power did not significantly expose this problem. Nowadays, DC generators are used for power supply, and carbon wires become extremely weak under high current conditions. Although the research results have not yet been made public, Swann's usual discussions about incandescent lamps have attracted great attention from insiders.

Sir Joseph Swan (picture taken from

That year, on his way to Wyoming to see the solar eclipse, Edison learned about Swann from the physicist Buck during a chat. He immediately felt that incandescent lamps would become essential lighting equipment for every household in the future, so he quickly accelerated research and development to seize the opportunity while the technology was still immature.

After all these years, Edison was no longer a genius. He was a little newsboy, and he was already a great inventor who invented the phonograph and the synchronous transmitter. Although his own scientific research level was not high, he knew how to employ people. There were many college students and scientists in his laboratory. Assigning his scientist Upton to assist in the research and development of incandescent lamps

On the other hand, the research and development of incandescent lamps was far from being practical, so Edison had already established a new electric light company, and He also advertised in newspapers that he had solved various supporting problems for electric lights, attracting many investors. This also forced Swan to put his immature incandescent lamp on the market early.

In 1878, Swann publicly demonstrated his incandescent lamp at the Newcastle Chemical Society, but what he was most worried about happened. The filament was burned out due to excessive current. This problem was demonstrated again the following year. However, this did not prevent Swann from applying for a patent for the carbon filament vacuum glass dome incandescent lamp in the United Kingdom.

Edison’s investment of a lot of money and manpower was not in vain. In 1879, his laboratory adopted it. Carbonized cotton silk made a long-lasting incandescent lamp, and he publicly demonstrated his incandescent lamp at the end of the year.

Swann was very unhappy when he learned about it. He published an article in "Nature" magazine and pointed out: "Fifteen years ago, I used coke paper and coke cardboard to make electric lamps based on the principle of incandescent lamps. To be precise, I used it in the shape of a horseshoe, just like how Edison uses it now."?

Condemnation is in vain. In the end, inventions have to rely on patents. At the end of 1880, Swann's incandescent lamp was patented in the UK, becoming the first incandescent lamp patent in the UK. Edison's patent was not so good. It went smoothly. Although the application date was several months earlier than Swan's, it was determined by the US Patent Office in 1883 that it was an extended innovation based on Swan's invention, and the patent was invalid.

Edison appealed for 6 years. Finally, he obtained the patent for the incandescent lamp in 1889. Even if Edison's business talent was high, he could not shake the status of Swann incandescent lamp in the UK.

Edison's business empire had to reach the British market. Spending a high price to purchase Swan's patent license, the two parties eventually cooperated to establish the "EdiSwan" company in the UK.

After telling the story, you will definitely think that Swan invented the incandescent lamp. It would be a bit wrong. If the Englishman Swann invented the electric light, then the Russians would definitely not be willing to do so. In their country, there was the incandescent lamp invented by Lord King in 1872 and then Yablo. The "candle" carbon rod electric light invented by Chekhov in 1875.

If the Russians invented the electric light, then the Germans would definitely not be willing to do so. The carbonized bamboo filament incandescent lamp invented by German Henry Goebbels in 1854 could last for 400 hours, before he became a U.S. citizen.

If the electric light was invented by the Germans, then Britain would be back in the unwilling ranks.

Because in 1801, David, a great chemist and president of the Royal Society of England, conducted an experiment to make platinum wire glow with electricity. Eight years later, David and his student Faraday developed a carbon rod arc lamp, but it was not suitable for home use because it was too bright and lost too quickly.

Who invented the electric light? Is it Edison, the 23rd inventor who brought electric light to every household, or other inventors who made practical incandescent lamps earlier?

No, no one actually invented the electric light. The electric light is just an inevitable milestone in the development of human science and technology.

There was no DC generator technology, no mature vacuum technology, and no foundation in electrical theory. Even if we returned to that era with ready-made electric lamps, we would not be able to imitate qualified products. Swann’s experience is the best illustration.

The dispute between countries over the invention of the electric light is just to show the breakthrough of national science and technology. Even if there are 10,000 reasons, they cannot label this most innovative achievement of all mankind as their own. .