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PHYSICS: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb – Fact or Myth?

Myths are stories that are made up without any verification and there are very less or almost no authentic sources to verify whether they are true or false. Although they may be true but majority of them are false. Most of the myths are about Roman Gods, super heroes, inventions, discoveries and many other fictitious people and places.

There are several scientists and teams of people who are working to bust these myths. There are plenty of myths which have been busted in last some years. The team of “Myth Busters” is also working hard to proof these myths false and have busted many of them successfully.

In this post, we are going to list a story that was found to be false. And from now on, we’ll dedicate a special category to list all the important stories that are not true.

Did Thomas Edison invent Light Bulb?

When I was in school, I learnt from my teachers that light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison and because there was no Google, Wikipedia or any other source at that time, I believed everything what our teachers said, but the fact is that bulb was not invented by Thomas Edison.

Why Edison is known as Bulb’s inventor

Without any doubt, with 1093 patents in USA, Thomas Edison was one of the greatest inventors, but he didn’t invent the light bulb. The bulb was already invented 40 years before birth of Edison.

Edison experimented with hundreds of filaments to develop a long-lasting bulb and he succeeded to make one in 1879. Therefore, this misconception is very common that Edison was the real inventor of bulb.

Who was the real inventor?

Sir Humphry Davy was the first to invent a light bulb with a lifespan of 12 hours. Later, more than 20 scientists worked individually to make a long-lasting bulb.

Sir Joseph Swan was the first to present an idea of modern light bulb during a lecture but unfortunately he was unable to get its patent and one year later Edison got a patent for it.

In my personal opinion, the real inventor of the light bulb was Sir Humphry Davy but the credit of today’s developed and advanced light bulb should be given to all the scientists who worked on it and made our lives so bright.

 

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