Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!

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So, women *in general* are equally good humping 120-lb packs at altitude, in the Afghan mountains, and wouldn't slow your squad down under fire?

Good luck!

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Cheers, 
James Arthur

being the person who invented the light bulb, he actually improved upon pr evious inventions to create the first commercially efficient, widely used l ight bulb. The creation of the light bulb is thought to have begun in 1800 with Italian inventor Alessandro Volta s invention of the voltaic wire, whi ch provided the first electrical current. That same year, English scientist Humphrey Davy created the first electric light. Throughout the next severa l decades, it is estimated that as many as 20 inventors worked on inventing a long-lasting incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison became the first t o succeed. His bulb could burn for about 1,500 hours, compared with previou s versions that lasted only minutes."

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Why not find that patent and find out?

Scarcely useful for domestic or theatre lighting, even if you had your own portable thunderstorm.

Obviously not. He invented the carbon arc lamp, and had earlier heated a pl atinum strip to incandescence in a laboratory demonstration - it wasn't pre sented as an incipient electric lamp.

Why not read the patent? It's a matter of record.

U.S. Patent 0,223,898 granted 27 January 1880

But your own ignorance is some kind of virtue?

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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No more than men "in general". Making up that kind of squad depends on sele cting individuals with particular capabilities. Only a lunatic would assume that every male was equally suitable for such a squad.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

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Well, we have "big business" to thank for that. Nearly everything gets cross (dross?) licensed and the corpoRATe sponsors are happy. But Mr/Ms small cannot get into the club (which is what the corpoRATe entities want, exclusion of new thought/competition).

We have the best legislature and regulators that money can buy.

?-)

I

Because the review process has devolved into 'did you properly dot your "t"s and cross your "i"s'. It was way better when you had to provide a working example.

?-)

as being the person who invented the light bulb, he actually improved upon previous inventions to create the first commercially efficient, widely used light bulb. The creation of the light bulb is thought to have begun in 180

0 with Italian inventor Alessandro Volta s invention of the voltaic wire, w hich provided the first electrical current. That same year, English scienti st Humphrey Davy created the first electric light. Throughout the next seve ral decades, it is estimated that as many as 20 inventors worked on inventi ng a long-lasting incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison became the first to succeed. His bulb could burn for about 1,500 hours, compared with previ ous versions that lasted only minutes."

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platinum strip to incandescence in a laboratory demonstration - it wasn't p resented as an incipient electric lamp.

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So you did, and are ready to compare and contrast Edison v. Swann v. Davy's? Slick, thanks. Where's your analysis?

I tried last week and couldn't--the USPTO servers weren't serving it. But, it's futile anyway--if Rickman doesn't understand patent art, my understanding it won't help him. The hypotheticals above were meant to inspire him, to provide examples to clarify his thinking.

It's hard to see why I'm responsible for researching Rickman's beliefs and explaining why he's wrong--I've taken no position on the Swan vs. Edison aspect, simply pointed out reasons why it might not be as simple as it seems.

But, if being constructive on the merits were your aim, we'll look forward to you doing what you just said---comparing the claimed matter in the two patents--and reporting.

Personally, I'm amply satisfied that Davy's carbon arc and the incandescent filament lamps 78 years later are distinct inventions. I gave a sketch of some of the distinguishing inventive elements above.

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Cheers, 
James Arthur

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d as being the person who invented the light bulb, he actually improved upo n previous inventions to create the first commercially efficient, widely us ed light bulb. The creation of the light bulb is thought to have begun in 1

800 with Italian inventor Alessandro Volta s invention of the voltaic wire, which provided the first electrical current. That same year, English scien tist Humphrey Davy created the first electric light. Throughout the next se veral decades, it is estimated that as many as 20 inventors worked on inven ting a long-lasting incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison became the fir st to succeed. His bulb could burn for about 1,500 hours, compared with pre vious versions that lasted only minutes."

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No. I wasn't asking the silly questio9ns in the first place, let alone pont ificating about stuff that I clearly didn't know much about.

Except that Humphrey Davey was invoked in a way that didn't have much to do with the historical record. "Hypotheticals" that are compleltley off the w all don't clarify anybody's thinking.

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The reference to Humphrey Davy wasn't Rickman's and your dragging Davy in d idn't clarify anybody's thinking.

Why should I? The historians did it many years ago, not to mention Swan and Edison's patent lawyers, and Edison lost, in court, and in the historical record. His publicity machine ignored this at the time, and Swan was happy to leave him to exploit the US market for their mutual benefit.

Wow. Most people would settle for asserting that a 78 year gap was persuasi ve argument, but you have to tell us that you find it personally satisfying .

So your "hypotheticals" are now promoted to "distinguishing inventive eleme nts". You do like your straw men, but promoting them in mid-argument is a l ittle transparent, even for you.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

To begin with there is no "universally accepted course of history". To help you understand this i highly recommend that you get a copy of "Interpretations of American History" by Grob and Billias. To really learn take a course based on the book at your local or online university.

?-)

See my previous post. There ain't no such thing. That is the point Grob and Billias make so resoundingly. And that is just US history (since the revolutionary era at that, most of the pre-columbian history has been lost). Scale it up to world history and soo many records are lost (or never created) that we will never know.

?-)

against

wishes.

battle.

         ...Jim Thompson

it.

 America--

We seem to run in polar opposite circles of people. All the people that i associate with that want bigger government, trust it way too completely; and the ones that want smallest government that can do the job, distrust it the most.

Or maybe they are all fooling me.

?-)

Exactly.

--
Cheers, 
James Arthur

: r

You really need to take a course in ethical argument, which would teach you that you ought to refrain from text-chopping, or at least mark your snips.

In the meantime, note that there's no virtue in recapitulating a well-estab lished and documented historical point. It is well-known that Edison did no t invent the filament lamp, though he made a lot of money out of selling hi s version of Swan's invention. One-eyed American patriots have trouble forg etting what they were miss-taught in school. You've got a similar problem w ith the economic nonsense that you soaked up before you could know better.

You do need a de-programmer, but you are the last person to realise that yo u need that kind of help.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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ou that you ought to refrain from text-chopping, or at least mark your snip s.

I'm not going to argue with you Bill. You're trolling, your points are vapid, and it's boring.

--
Cheers, 
James Arthur

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you > > that you ought to refrain from text-chopping, or at least mark you r snips.

Because you'd look even sillier than you do now.

But correct. Not the most gracious concession I've seen, but backing down i s backing down, no matter how ungraciously it's done.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

No. The carbon arc lamp was a distinct other technology.

Edison copied Swann's earlier UK patent and filed a patent in the USA. The crucial features were a pure high impedance carbon filament in a vacuum protected by a glass envelope so it lasted a thousand hours.

He literally claimed to have invented Swann's light bulb but in America! He may have had a slightly better vacuum but it was a rip off copy.

It was a close run thing. Lots of people were playing with essentially the same technology of thin conductor in a glass vacuum envelope.

Edison's 1880 US light bulb patent was subsequently invalidated in October 1883 due to prior art claims by William Sawyer something else which US revisionist history chooses to ignore. Edison's patent was later reinstated in 1889 after they had combined forces and Swan altered his own story to enable them to game the US patent system.

I have been able to find Edison's 1880 patent in full online:

I have not so far been able to find a free access copy of Swanns UK or US patents. The poor guy is very much ignored these days. However, contemporaneous records do show that he won the first round patent battle and that at the Paris exhibition of 1881 where Edison and Swann both exhibited Swann was honoured by the French President with the 'Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur' in recognition of his invention.

Swann also beat a patent infringement claim by Edison in the UK - a result which led to them joining forces to defend against other claims.

US history rewriting now pretends that Edison was the inventor of the carbon filament light bulb. Swann later played along with this story to make legal action in the USA against other competitors easier and in

1889 Edison's 1880 US patent was reinstated.

Here is a somewhat US'o'centric history of the electric light bulb which if you only read the top bit would give you the impression that Edison really was the true inventor - but read on to the end...

Note how they have fiddled the criteria to get the "right" answer.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

Finding a patent number and a bit of educated guesswork gets me:

So now you can compare the US patents in detail side by side.

I still can't find a free access copy of his UK patent :(

And here is the earlier Sawyer prior art patent 205,144 as well.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

Did Edison know of the work of Swann or Sawyer? (I have no idea.) He could have eventually stumbled on the same construction. That, of course, would not help him with a patent.

I really doubt that it was a big conspiracy to take credit away from all but Edison, or from Britian.

I don't doubt that everybody read everybody's patents, and tried to work around them. People still do exactly this, and always will.

If for instance Swann had the superior patent, why didn't he simply take Edison to court and wipe him out? Or vice versa.

The courts of the day found that Edison and Swann both had valid claims. If this were not so, one of them would have achieved total victory, and we would not remember the name of the loser.

But that's not what happened. Ultimately, Edison and Swann were more interested in making fortunes, so they merged their claims.

Nor is any of this exactly a secret - the records are ample, and still exist, 130 years later. I saw some of the records at the Edison museum in Naples, Florida.

That said, the media tend to "oversimplify". And Fleet Street is a leader in such things. We Yanks learnt from them.

Joe Gwinn

No conspiracy, just the natural tendency of authors writing for the US market to construct a narrative that makes Americans feel good.

He did take him to court, and won. Swan figured he could make more money out of Edison's existing sales and manufacturing set-up by getting Edison cut to him in than he could by shutting him down entirely and trying to set up his own US operation.

Swan did achieve total victory, and got to chose how he exploited it.

Edison's preferences didn't matter all that much - Swan made him an offer he was happy to accept.

The UK regard the "gutter Press" as a US innovation. William Randolph Hearst has a lot to answer for.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney