Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!

I've read articles written by our beloved BBC to credit Edison with the invention of the light bulb. With misinformation being so abundant on this issue, it's no wonder that respected institutions make the same mistake.

I think that both Edison and Swann were both very shrewd players.

That may be the case, but he still ha the nerve to take Edison to court, and then the business sense to create a partnership with his adversary. That takes nerve and something I respect. Most would capitulate to human emotion at some point or another. The fact the partnership survived so many years suggests they both buried their hatchets.

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Mike Perkins 
Video Solutions Ltd 
www.videosolutions.ltd.uk

From grade school in the 1950s, what I remember is not that Edison invented the light bulb, but that he invented (after 5000 failed experiments) the first practical electric lighting system (not just the lamps). I do not recall any mention of Swann. But this is grade school.

Yes. And Edison was far richer at the time.

We have these fights today as well. The typical pattern is that there are multiple valid patents, none being sufficient to build the item in question, so the patent owners are in a quandary. The usual solution is merger or a patent pool or the like.

Avoiding litigation is a very good idea. I don't know if Swann's patent was stronger, or simply strong enough, but the effect was the same.

He was good at that, and famous for it. Aided and abetted by the media of the day.

Even more egregious was Newton's persecution of the fellow that discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he destroyed.

But I bet he didn't mind the fortune - there wasn't much government funding of research in those days.

Better than bamboo? Easier to make for sure. But eclipsed by tungsten soon after.

The carbonized ~rayon path to carbon fiber is used to this day, as the carbon fiber in composite materials.

Joe Gwinn

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Not quite the same situation. Edison had one patent and it turned out to be invalid.

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He seems to have done it very effectively. Chester Moore Hall apparently ha d the first achromatic doublet made in 1733, six years after Newton died.

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In 1904, some twenty years later.

This isn't strictly accurate. Joseph Swan used cellulose nitrate fibre as t he basis for his filaments, while rayon is more or less pure cellulose, and correspondingly less inflammable. Apparently polyacrylonitrile has replace d rayon as the preferred starting material for structural carbon fibre.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Swann also recognised that in America the patent system is such that the winner is usually the local guy with the deepest pockets. He was saved the trouble of fighting there by a local getting Edisons patent disallowed. Later after they were collaborating they needed to get Edisons 1880 patent reinstated and so played up his contribution.

They didn't avoid litigation Edison sued Swann for infringement of his patent in the UK and Swann crushed him. Then they decided to join forces to exploit the technology whilst they still had a lead. Swann at the time had the key valid patent and Edison had been defeated in patent battles in both the UK (where he fought Swann and lost) and US (the latter ruled invalid and struck down for prior art by Wallace).

Edison was forced to collaborate with Swann after his patent defeats.

Are you sure about that? I am a former astronomer and AFAIK the mathematics to design achromats dates from long after Newtons death.

Dolland is usually credited with inventing the achromat and patenting it

- he won the Copley medal for it too in 1758 although Bass had made similar things 20 years earlier to a design by Charles Moore Hall. The earliest date quoted for Bass having made the first achromat is 1727 - the same year that Newton died. Seems unlikely he did much persecuting.

There might have been some other guy who put together a serendipitous crown and flint doublet or glass and water design before Newton died but it seems a bit unlikely. Do you any names or dates for this?

The point here is that in science experiment always trumps theory so if the guy did construct such an achromat all he had to do was show it to the Royal Society which despite being Newton's plaything was still very independent minded and would quickly see that it worked.

Eulers mathematics for predicting dispersion in optics wasn't done until

1747 and Newton had died twenty years earlier. It was testing Eulers ideas that clearly conflicted with Newtons claims in Opticks that led Dollond to the first achromatic lens design (as opposed to trial and error combos of different optical components).

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

The patent systems also differed in a very fundamental aspect back then: The US awarded patents to the first to invent, while in the rest of the world it was first to file the patent application. The US changed to first-to-file as of 15 April 2013.

This too is the usual path - first a test of strength or two, then the settlements.

The question to ask is that if Swann won completely, on all fronts, why did he need or want Edison? Edison must have had something Swann needed. I don't know the details, but it may well have been the rest of the system needed to use the light bulbs.

I did read the story in optical design books (or biographies), versus telescope texts. Bill Sloman said that the victim was Chester Moore Hall, which sounds right to me, but I have not found my source. It was a bit ugly, so many sources choose to omit that detail.

Joe Gwinn

It could possibly have been in the latter part of Newtons life, but it seems a bit odd since a convincing experimental demonstration of his technology would have shot Newton down in flames. But according to what little of his private papers survive it is thought he only really hit upon the idea of two materials compensating around 1729 (2 years after Newton had died). Best biography of him that I can find online is:

There is no doubt that Newtons convincing demonstration of the wavelike nature of light by Newtons rings slowed down the development of quantum theory and helped put Hooke's nose well out of joint. As did the standing on the shoulders of giants jibe - geniuses can be a bit odd.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

What Edison had were US factories and a product distribution system. Swan was happy to take a cut - easier than setting up his own.

So cite them.

That's not what I said at all. I pointed out that his lens became known only after Newton was dead, which struck me as making it unlikely that he was Newton's victim.

So find your source. It sounds more like a false memory to me - something your sub-conscious has cobbled together out of bits of other stories.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

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Right. Rickman simply doesn't understand the distinctions made in patent art.

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I've just reviewed the patents, and that characterization is incorrect.

Edison's US 223,898 claims a

1) a thin carbon thread filament, rolled in lamp-black loaded tar; 2) that filament and platinum wire conductors, encased in an evacuated envelope made solely of glass; 4) the method of attaching and carbonizing that exact filament during manufacture. %20edison&f=false

Swann's US 233,445 claims

1) Using platinum end caps to seal the entry of platinum wires into an evacuated bulb; 2) a flat carbon filament made of carbonized parchment, paper, or cardboard, and bent into a loop; 3) a flat carbon filament made of carbonized parchment 4) the method of coating the internal wires with glass or enamel.

So, they are distinct, not the same; all claims relate to very specific improvements and methods and refinements to and their particular constructions of "a carbonized filament in an evacuated envelope."

The patent documents I read describe distinct methods and refinements.

If you're referring to Sawyer's US 205,144, just skimming the claims, that describes carbon rods in a "vitreous" bottle sealed with stoppers "and held together by a clamping device," various wys to support all of this, and to fill it with various non-oxidizing atmospheres. It's not the same.

I succeeded this time. The links are above.

I'm afraid I don't see how the patents support that understanding of events. It appears to me, with no other context, that each inventor advanced different inventive elements.

Edison, with his tar-loaded thread, appears to have invented a better filament construction and manufacture, whereas Swann appears to have perfected a much better seal (claim #4). Those are potentially complimentary inventions, but not overlapping.

IOW, one invented peanut butter, and the other chocolate. Their coming together was inevitable.

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Cheers, 
James Arthur

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Or, more precisely, one that James Arthur doesn't want to agree with.

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They've been drafted to look different or at least - more likely - Edison's was.

The useful patent was on using a carbon filament in a vacuum, and the metho ds of turning carbon-rich material into such a filament are illustrative de tail.

Being able to patent distinct recipes - variations that were obvious to tho se skilled in the art - would make the patent system worthless.

They had to demonstrate how the invention was reduced to practice.

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Of course they do. Edison wasn't silly enough to put forward an obvious cop y of Swan's original UK patent.

The details of the reduction to practice aren't the same, but Sawyer's basi c invention seems to have been close enoughto qualify as prior art.

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James Arthur, with Nelson's telescope firmly in his blind eye, fails to see what he doesn't want to see. The US courts saw it differently at the time.

Edison's tar-loaded threads/bamboo splints, lost out - in practice - to Swa n's extruded nitro-cellouse filaments. Which one would you figure to be the more manufacturable?

A bizarre conclusion, but James Arthur never lets the facts stand between h im and the conclusion he wants to come to.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

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Specious, speculation, and of no relevance. Whatever the style, a patent's CONTENT governs its interpretation.

hods of turning carbon-rich material into such a filament are illustrative detail.

Objectively wrong. None of the three parties claimed "carbon filament in a vacuum." That was evidently prior art. (They surely wouldn't have skipped a broad obvious claim like that it they could sustain it.)

hose skilled in the art - would make the patent system worthless.

That's done in the specification. The claims cover the whole, entire, actual patented matter. If it's not claimed, it's not patented. That confuses lots of neophytes. Just because they talk about something in the text doesn't mean they're claiming to have invented it.

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opy of Swan's original UK patent.

A mischaracterization of the objective facts. Each claimed distinctly different patented matter. You don't seem to understand patents.

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sic invention seems to have been close enoughto qualify as prior art.

Saywer's ground bottle-halves with stoppers--clamped together with a clamping device--enclosing a 1-4 ohm carbon rod in a protective gas atmoshpere, anticipates Edison and Swann's improvements? Sawyer's document describes 1K-4K ohm carbonized filaments on platinum electrodes, in evacuated glass envelopes? That's insane.

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Cheers, 
James Arthur

My understanding is that it was in Newton's later years.

The details are hazy to me, but I think the dispute was theoretical at the time.

I don't doubt that a working achromat would have settled the issue no matter what Newton thought or did - the experiment is too easily replicated, and achromats too valuable to ignore. Every optician in the world would have tried it.

But it's interesting that achromats appeared so soon after Newton's death.

They can at that. And they can become imperial.

Joe Gwinn

Not Swann, but Swan.

Swann make scalpel blades ;-)

-- "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." (Richard Feynman)

The relationship between King Edward VIII, and Wallis Simpson was kept out of the British press, and unknown to the British public, right until the abdication crisis broke. US newspapers were full of the story right from the start.

As to which is preferable, I offer no opinion.

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence  
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." 
                                       (Richard Feynman)

Then why is Newton strongly associated with the Corpuscular theory of light. OK so he got many things wrong, but the idea he pursued that light was made of particles is fundamental to quantum theory.

--
Mike Perkins 
Video Solutions Ltd 
www.videosolutions.ltd.uk

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have skipped a broad obvious claim like that it they could sustain

It might look like a "broad obvious claim" now, with benefit of hindsight. It's less obvious that it would have worked that way back then.

those skilled in the art - would make the patent system worthless.

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basic invention seems to have been close enough to qualify as prior art.

Then so was the US patent court system in the 1880s. It seems more likely t hat the insanity is yours.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Ooops!!! My mistake from memory.

It was Newton that put Hooke's nose out of joint over this but you are right he was for the corpuscular theory and poor Hooke was for waves. Hooke had a major coffee table book hit with "Micrographia" and there was jealous rivalry between them and also over inverse square law. It seems highly likely that Hooke had the original idea and Newton the mathematics to prove it. The information leaked via mutual friends.

It was the first scientific best seller ever published! The drawings and engravings in it are still impressive even today.

Hooke basically got a raw deal in history. His fundamental mistake as one retired Astronomer Royal recently put it was in "dying first".

There are moves to get Hooke (and also much later Harrison) better recognised as unsung scientific heroes of early scientific work.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

There are two modern biographies that go a long way to setting the record s traight. I've got Lisa Jardine's

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and she thinks highly of Stephen Inwoods's

Hooke was an extremely sociable character - in complete contrast to Newton

- and worked hand in glove with Christopher Wren, who also had a hand in th e inverse square law. Sadly, only Newton had the mathematical tools to turn into and explanation of Kepler's rules of planetary motion, and Newton was n't into sharing.

Harrison has also had the benefit of modern biography - Dava Sobel's 1995

"Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scienti fic Problem of His Time." New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-025879-5.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

rote:

g the person who invented the light bulb, he actually improved upon previou s inventions to create the first commercially efficient, widely used light 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, which provided the first electrical current. That same year, English scientist Hu mphrey Davy created the first electric light. Throughout the next several d ecades, it is estimated that as many as 20 inventors worked on inventing a long-lasting incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison became the first to s ucceed. His bulb could burn for about 1,500 hours, compared with previous v ersions that lasted only minutes."

a light bulb, since the carbon rods get chewed up rather rapidly. It was a useful light source, if you needed a very bright light and had enough money to pay somebody to look after it while it was burning and didn't need to k eep it burning for longer than it took to chew through a carbon rod, which wasn't much longer than an hour or so

an enough money to persuade him to ignore Edison's campaign of Larkinesque self-aggrandisement in the USA.

James Arthur isn't as far out of touch with reality as Jim Thompson. James Arthur at least knows stuff, though he's totally unwilling to entertain the idea that his "evidence" might mean something different from what he's mad e up his mind that it "really" means.

Jim Thompson is equally committed to the same set of political principles b ut can't be bothered even finding out where the evidence is. In practice th ere's not a lot of difference between not knowing about the evidence and ig noring what the evidence is telling you, but Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality- Thompson is less restrained about inventing "facts".

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Bill Sloman, Sydney