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Thomas Edison is most often credited with inventing the electrical light bulb, but several other inventors created early versions of incandescent light bulbs. But Thomas Edison was able to lay claim to and popularize the light bulb because of 3 differences between his light bulbs and the other inventors’:

1. Edison’s light bulb had a better filament.
2. The vacuum created inside of an Edison light bulb was stronger than in other inventors’ light bulbs.
3. Edison’s light bulb was easier to power with a central electrical source.

Wholesale light bulbs would be impossible to manufacture if it hadn’t been for Edison’s work in creating cheap, usable light bulbs.

One of the more entertaining stories about Edison’s work on inventing the light bulb was his search for the perfect filament. Edison used the process of elimination to try various materials for his filament, and legend has it that he even used a strand of an employee’s bead hair as a potential filament. One of the earliest materials used for a filament was platinum, but they tried a variety of different metals before settling on a carbon filament.

Edison’s patent for the electrical light bulb was filed in 1878. Imagine a world without electrical light, and imagine the change that creating a cheap source of electrical lighting would create in the world. The Civil War ended in 1865, just 13 years before Edison filed his patent. How would that war have been fought differently if they’d had access to electric light bulbs? What would houses look like today if we didn’t have Christmas lights to hang? I for one would hate to have to read by candle light every night, especially now that I’m getting a little bit older and my eyes are getting a little bit weaker.