Lightbulb - They're brighter than they seem.

Lightbulbs! We're surrounded by lightbulbs, LCD, LED, Coloured, Incandescent, White light, UVlight, we are overwhelmed by them. There's days we spend using house lights, days we use tiny bright light bulbs in our telecommunications devices to create flashes of light to take "Selfies", we have a whole day dedicated to buying a million lights and covering your houses in them wrapping them around yourself round and round head to toes until there's no room left. Even giving little led lights to your kids for lunch! Christmas!

Okay MAYBE I'm over exaggerating  but lightbulbs are a very important creation in the history of man, we use lightbulbs big or small everywhere to the point we can see light from earth all the way from space. How did it all start tho?

In 1802, Humphrey Davy was the first to invent the lightbulb. It started out as an experiment with electricity and inventing the first battery, but unsuspectedly while connecting the wires to his battery and a piece of carbon the carbon began to glow producing a light. This was later known as an electric arc lamp but this didn't produce a long or bright enough light for practical use.

Over the next 7 decades there were many who waked the same grounds as Davey searching for what we know as a commercial lightbulb. It wasn't long until nearly 8 decades had passed that a man named Thomas Edison in 1878 started serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp. He filed multiple u.s. patents for an electric lamp while still continuously working on better ways to create a longer and better lightbulb until he came across "carbonised bamboo filament" which could last 1200 hours. This is the first time lightbulbs were commercially manufactured in 1880 by Edison Electric Light Company.

(Thomas Edison's first commercial bulb design -1880)

So we've been using the same bulbs for 130+ years? you may be asking, Well throughout the next 100 or so years, Edison Electric experimented on the lightbulb design to create what today we know as tungsten lightbulbs in 1906. This was even further developed in 1910 by William David Coolidge who worked for General Electric improved the process of manufacturing to create the longest lasting tungsten filaments. In 1920's theres a emerge in the first "frosted lightbulb" with adjustable power beam bulbs for cars and neon lighting. Soon followed by one time flashbulbs in the 1930 used for photography. Soft light incandescent bulbs in the 40's, Quartz glass and halogen bulbs are produced in the 50's. After a long 30 years, in the 80's a new low voltage metal halides was invented. and in the 90's Long life bulbs and compact florescent bulbs made a debut.

Since the 90's new technology using lightbulbs are constantly being improved  nearly every year making the lightbulb more efficient year by year, or creating smaller and better ways of using the lightbulb.

(Evolution of Lightbulbs)

But what about the future hold? Well first of all the main problem with lightbulbs is that less than 10% of the actual electricity supplied actually turns to visible light, therefore US legislation states people have to replace incandescent bulbs for LED or fluorescent lamps due to less energy consumption. I believe in a few years the the incandescent lightbulb may get completely replaced by fluorescents or something better depending on emerging technology. This could also be replaced by a completely new invention to create light but that may mean over the next 10-50 years lightbulbs may become a thing of the past.

http://www.bulbs.com/learning/history.aspx
http://www.thomasedison.org/index.php/education/inventions/
http://energy.gov/articles/history-light-bulb

RAG: G2 - I think I preformed well in this task and I worked to my potential but I could have done better than I did. I need to be using my time effectively to finish without having to take work home.