Lying on my bed face up after a long journey home, I was staring at the light bulb on the ceiling of my room when suddenly the electricity was restored and the bright light hit my eyes (Nigerians will understand). At that point, it struck me that though I am a student of science (mechanical engineering to be precise) I have not really been able to understand fully the way an incandescent bulb works. So I decided to do some reading and research and here I am sharing what I learnt.
For our day to day activities as humans, we all need light because that is the only way our eyes can function and we can get things done. The human eyes can only see an object when light is reflected off it. In the night (or when it is dark) we employ the use of different types of light producing appliances ranging from the oil lamps of old to the big flood lights we use in the stadium. For virtually everything we do, we need light. I would be discussing one light producing appliance that has been around for quite a while and has a number of applications in our daily lives, THE INCADESCENT BULB

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WHAT IS AN INCADESCENT BULB

An incandescent light bulb is a source of electric light that works by incandescence. It is also known as incandescent globe (obviously) and is an electric light in which a wire filament which glows with visible light as a result of it being heated to a high temperature. It is usually enclosed in a glass globe to prevent oxidation and also the escape of the inert gas the globe is filled with.
The incandescent bulb is used widely in household and commercial lightening and also for portable lighting like table lamps, car headlamps, flashlights, etc.

HISTORY OF THE INCADESCENT BULB

As history would have it, there seem to be about 22 prior inventors of the incandescent bulb before the known names; JOSEPH SWAN and THOMAS EDISON but as fate would have it, Thomas Edisons verson seemed me to outshine all other inventions because of three distinct factors which are;

1. An effective incandescent material
2. A higher vacuum and
3. A high resistance
   An historian, Thomas Huges said this about Edison’s invention

The lamp was a small component in his system of electric lighting, and no more critical to its effective functioning than the Edison Jumbo generator, the Edison main and feeder, and the parallel-distribution system. Other inventors with generators and incandescent lamps, and with comparable ingenuity and excellence, have long been forgotten because their creators did not preside over their introduction in a system of lighting. — Thomas P. Hughes, In Technology at the Turning Point, edited by W. B. Pickett

More details about the earlier history of the incandescent bulb can be seen here

HOW THE INCADESCENT BULB WORKS

The incandescent bulb works as a result of electric current passing through a tungsten filament and heating it of a temperature hot enough to produce light. The glass enclosure serves as a vacuum free of oxygen which disintegrates the filament. It is sometimes filled with an inert gas such as Nitrogen or Argon (these gases do not react with the filament therefore preserving it from evaporating when heated). Tungsten is commonly used as the filament material in many light sources because of its unique properties such as;
It has;
• The highest melting point
• The lowest vapor pressure
• The greatest tensile strength of all metals

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Basically, these amazing properties of tungsten are what makes up the whole operation of the incandescent bulb possible; as electricity is passed through the filament, its low resistivity (as a result of its small surface area) causes it to heat up instead of breaking off, its high melting point causes it to heat up to a very high temperature also without breaking such that it gives off light.

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ADVANTAGES OF INCADESCENT LIGHT BULBS

The following advantages are the reason for which incandescent bulbs find application in our daily lives even till today.
• Incandescent bulbs require no external regulating equipment
• They have a very low manufacturing cost
• They work well on either alternating current or direct current.
• They are also compatible with control devices such as dimmers, timers, and photo sensors, and
• They can be used both indoors and outdoors.

DISADVANTAGES OF INCANDESCENT BULBS

The main disadvantage of the incandescent bulb is the fact that it gives out a lot of heat and as a result, about 95% of the electricity applied to the filament is lost as heat.
This disadvantage is the main reason other forms of lighting devices are preferred to the incandescent bulb because of the high energy it consumes and obviously wastes away

Because of this inefficiency, manufacturers were inspired to design a more efficient light bulb

The various types of light bulbs in use in our world of today include:
Incandescent
Halogen bulbs
Fluorescent and Compact fluorescent bulbs
LED

Here os a video illustrating all I discussed above

CONCLUSION

Even though a lot of advancements have been done and a variety of lighting devices are available today, the incandescent light bulb is still in use and is surely an important part of our daily life activities

So, there we have it. I am glad I there is a platform such as steemit where one can learn, share and earn. Thanks for reading.

REFERENCES

https://blog.1000bulbs.com/home/how-incandescent-light-bulbs-work
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/incandescentlamp.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb
https://www.bulbs.com/learning/incandescent.aspx
http://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/design-101/light-bulbs-know-the-different-types