Filipino Electrician Agapito Flores is NOT the Inventor of Fluorescent Lamp!

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"Filipino Electrician Agapito Flores is NOT the Inventor of Fluorescent Lamp!"

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Basically, when we were still in our elementary years, our teachers have taught us that a certain Filipino named Agapito Flores invented the fluorescent lamp that we are widely using today. This particular claim was written all over our science textbooks back then without any dispute.

And so as a result, we lived our entire life believing that the Filipino inventor did really invented the fluorescent lamp. We might even have shared this specific entitlement to our much younger generation for them to be able to experience the pride that we have experienced too.

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But the fact is, Agapito Flores did not invent the fluorescent lamp. Although it is true that he created a fluorescent lamp all by himself and presented it to the late President Manuel Quezon, history dictates that he is not the first person to ever create the first fluorescent lamp.

According to this article entitled The History of Fluorescent Lights, a French physicist named Alexandre E. Becquerel investigated the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence and have made a conclusive theory on 1857 about fluorescent tubes.

His experiments involved coating electric discharge tubes with luminescent materials. This same process was later developed to be able to create the fluorescent lamps which are similar to our modern fluorescent lamps today.

Moreover, according to that same article, an American inventor and innovator named Peter Cooper Hewitt patented the first mercury vapor lamp in 1901 – U.S. patent 889,692. His invention, the low-pressure mercury arc lamp became the first ever prototype of the fluorescent lamps today.

On 1927, inventor Edmund Germer co-patented and experimental fluorescent lamp together with Friedrich Meyer and Hans Spanner. Some historians have also credited Edmund Germer to be, perhaps, the true inventor of the first fluorescent lamp.

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While it is not clear of who really invented the first fluorescent lamp as several inventors have also patented various versions of fluorescent lamps such as Thomas Edison. It is clear that the Filipino pride, Agapito Flores is not the inventor of fluorescent lamp.

Agapito Flores who was born in Bulacan, Philippines on September 28, 1897 was just four years old when the American inventor Peter C. Hewitt patented his mercury vapor lamp on 1901. He was not even around when Thomas Edison started developing his fluorescent lamp which uses x-rays rather than ultraviolet radiation from mercury vapor. Research for U.S. Patent 865,367 or read THIS.

And according to Dr. Benito Vergara of the Philippine Science Heritage Center,

As far as I could learn, a certain Flores presented the idea of fluorescent light to Manuel Quezon when he became president. At that time, General Electric Co. had already presented the fluorescent light to the public.

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History tells us that there are other inventors who were far ahead of Agapito Flores. And that term “fluorescent” did not come from the last name of the Filipino inventor. This might be so disappointing but this is the fact and we should live by this.

Agapito Flores might not have invented the first fluorescent lamp, but he is brilliant enough to have ever made such all by himself. I am sorry for busting this myth but I hope that you have learned something new.

References:
1.) https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-fluorescent-lights-4072017
2.) https://www.thoughtco.com/agapito-flores-background-1991702
3.) http://www.pinoytechnoguide.com/2012/12/did-agapito-flores-invent-fluorescent.html

_{Credits to @rocking-dave for this cool gif}