How many materials did Edison use to invent the electric light?

Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was a famous American inventor. He worked almost ten hours a day for decades, and read 3 to 5 hours in the study at night. So, on the day of Edison's 79th birthday, he proudly said to people, I am already 135 years old.

He lived to be 84 years old and made as many as 1,100 inventions during his lifetime, the greatest of which was the invention of the phonograph and the automatic telegraph, experimenting with and improving the incandescent lamp and **. Edison began to study electric lighting in his early 20s, and for more than 10 years, he successively chose bamboo cotton, graphite, tantalum ......and so on thousands of different substances as filament materials for testing, often through the sky, once he and his assistants worked for 5 days and nights. In 1879 Edison used carbon filament as an incandescent filament and lit it for 40 hours.

Because the surface of the carbon filament is porous, brittle, and the strength is very low. It was soon replaced by tungsten wire.

In 1883, Edison discovered the phenomenon of thermal electron emission, also known as the "Edison effect", that is, some electrons or ions near the metal surface get enough kinetic energy for their irregular movement due to high temperature, overcome the constraints of the surface, and escape from the metal. The Edison effect is essential for the operation of any vacuum tube, and the cathode, which is the emitting surface, is often coated with a layer of alkaline earth metal oxide to facilitate the emission of electrons, and heated with an electric current to maintain high temperatures.

In 1900, Edison invented the iron-nickel battery, which is an alkaline battery with an electromotive force of about 1 3 1 4 volts, which has a long life but is not very efficient. Edison made many inventions in his life, but when others asked Edison about the reason for his success, he said: Some people think that I have some genius, which is not true, "genius" is one percent inspiration, ninety percent of inspiration.

There are hundreds of them, the most famous of which is: bamboo silk.

More than 1,600 different heat-resistant materials.

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There are more than 1,600 species, and carbon filament is one of them.

More than 1,600 different heat-resistant materials.

More than 1,600 different heat-resistant materials.

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Edison invented the electric light bulb using more than 1,600 heat-resistant luminescent materials.

Edison tested more than 1,600 kinds of heat-resistant luminescent materials one by one, only platinum silk has good energy, but platinum ** is surprisingly expensive, and more suitable materials must be found to replace it.

In 1879, after several experiments, Edison finally decided to use charcoal filament as a filament. He sprinkled a piece of cotton silk with charcoal powder, bent it into a horseshoe shape, put it in a crucible and heated it, made a filament, put it in a light bulb, and then used an extractor to remove the air in the bulb, and the electric light was turned on, and it could be used continuously for 45 hours.

How it works:

Electric lamp is the conversion of electrical energy into light energy, in order to provide lighting equipment, appeared in the second industrial revolution, its working principle is: the current through the filament (tungsten filament, melting point of more than 3000) when the heat is generated, the spiral filament continues to gather heat, so that the temperature of the filament reaches more than 2000, the filament in the incandescent state, like the red-hot iron can shine and emit light.

The higher the temperature of the filament, the brighter the light emitted. Therefore, it is called incandescent lamp, from the perspective of energy conversion, when the lamp emits light, a large amount of electrical energy will be converted into heat energy, and only a very small part can be converted into useful light energy.

The light emitted by electric lamps is panchromatic light, but the proportion of each color is determined by the luminescent substance (tungsten) and temperature. The imbalance in proportions leads to a color cast in the light, so the color of the object is not realistic under incandescent light.

The story of Edison's invention of the electric light is as follows: British scientists David and Faraday invented the arc lamp. This type of electric lamp uses a charcoal rod as a filament.

Although it can emit bright light, it is dazzling and consumes a lot of power, which is very impractical. Therefore, Edison secretly decided: "We must invent a kind of electric light with soft light, so that thousands of households can use it."

He began to work on filament materials: from traditional carbon strips to metal ruthenium, chromium, platinum, etc., in this way, Edison experimented with more than 1,600 materials, but Edison did not back down in the face of repeated failures in the trial of tomato, he firmly believed that failure is the mother of success.

In October 1879, by chance, Edison tried to use carbonized cotton thread to put the light bulb, after the power was turned on, the light bulb emitted a golden yellow glow, illuminating the whole laboratory, after 13 months of hard work, tried more than 6,000 kinds of materials, tested more than 7,000 times, and finally made a breakthrough.

Although many of Edison's inventions were not his own, they could not be said to have been copied, but bought, such as the electric light.

In the book, Edison went through 1,600 failures in order to invent the electric light before he found tungsten filament and invented the electric light, but this is not the case, the real inventor of the electric light was an English engineer. Electric lights appeared about 30 years before Edison invented the electric light, when Edison was only seven years old, but the person who invented the electric light did not think of applying for a patent.

Later, when Edison was twenty-seven years old, he saw someone fill a glass bubble with nitrogen and use a carbon rod to emit light, and they had the right to apply for a patent, but Edison saw it and bought it. Edison was well aware of the market for light bulbs and devoted all his energy to researching light bulbs, so Edison established his electric power company and cooperated with many merchants.

Later, after many experiments, Edison finally found the legendary tungsten filament, improved the electric light, and introduced the electric light to the world. When Edison promoted it, he was sued, saying that the light bulb made by Edison was his patent, and Edison also lost the lawsuit.

But Edison did not fail, and the man who accused him could invent but not do business. Edison pulled the accuser to his own company for the first electric light, and the two became partners, and later Edison bought the patent for the electric light, and later Edison became the so-called inventor of the electric light, which has been passed down through the ages.

Character characteristics

As a typical capitalist and a tyrant of capital, Edison had all the temperament of a tyrant, stubborn, suspicious, ruthless, and bent on going his own way, even though he was gifted and intelligent, but he never put his heart into his mind, whether it was a partner, a competitor or a large number of subordinates, he did not establish a broad alliance with him, only oppression and exploitation.

Edison, who was stubborn and self-serving, was actually fighting alone, coupled with his uncompetitive descendants, in the merger of the enterprise, Edison went bankrupt twice in a row, and could only withdraw from the stage of the times. In West Orange, New Jersey, did Edison, who died in his dream, think of Tesla, Maxin, and the unknown inventors and actors who were once under him?