This twisted wire illustrates how the filament in the Edison bulb is twisted, but at a micro-scale – when the light's wavelength matches the length of the twist, the lightwaves twirl as they go ...

Illustration by Meilan Solly / Background via Library of Congress In the autumn of 1878, Thomas Alva Edison had a problem. He hadn’t invented the light bulb—yet. Or, to put it more precisely ...

At his Menlo Park laboratory, in New Jersey, USA, Edison demonstrated the first practical incandescent light bulb. It could glow for hours without burning out. A newspaper reporter dubbed him 'The ...

You can't buy incandescent light bulbs anymore. With a few exceptions, the bulbs – patented by Thomas Edison in 1880 and a common fixture in American homes for more than a century – have ...

That's why Edison's electric light bulb was seen as a great advance. But Edison didn't invent it. The modern light bulb has a glass bulb filled with an unreactive gas, such as argon. The filament ...

Though Thomas Edison is credited as the man who invented the lightbulb, several inventors paved the way for him. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

LED light bulbs are the biggest change in lighting since Thomas Edison invented the first commercially-viable incandescent. The best LED light bulbs are 90% more efficient than even the modern ...