What was the lighting in 1900?
Timelines of 20th Century Lamp Inventions
Lamps: 1900-1950 Tungsten Halogen Metal Halide High-Pressure Sodium Compact Fluorescent Silica Carbide Sulfur Lamp Incandescent and Discharge Lamps: 1900-1950 1901: Alfred Swan - modern glass-insulated base
Peter Cooper-Hewitt - low-pressure mercury vapor lamp 1902: Werner Von Bolton & Otto Feuerlein - tantalum lamp 1903: Herman Jaeger - early tipless design 1904: Alexander Just & Franz Hanaman;
Hans Kuzel;
Fritz Blau & Hermann Remané - non-ductile tungsten lamps 1905: Willis Whitney - "metallized" carbon lamp ("GEM") 1906: Richard Küch - quartz, high-pressure mercury lamp 1907: Georges Claude - neon tube 1910: William Coolidge - ductile tungsten lamp 1911: Irving Langmuir - gas-Filled, coiled-tungsten lamp 1920: D. McFarlan Moore - neon glow lamp 1923: Loris Mitchell & Arthur White - tipless lamp 1926: Friedrich Meyer, Hans Spanner, and Edmund Germer
- experimental fluorescent lamp 1931: Edison dies, October 18, West Orange, New Jersey 1932: GEC - high-pressure mercury vapor lamp
Harold Edgerton - xenon flash lamp
Giles Holst - low-pressure sodium lamp 1938: George Inman & Richard Thayer
- commercial fluorescent lamp 1942: Alfred McKeag & Peter Ranby - halophosphors 1948: Clifton Found & Wilford Winninghoff
- krypton-filled fluorescent lamp 1949: Marvin Pipkin - silica "Q-Coat" ("Soft White" lamp) top Tungsten Halogen Lamp: 1951: General Electric begins work on quartz heat-lamp mid
1953: Elmer Fridrich begins research into visible-light quartz-lamp late
1953: Fridrich and Emmett Wiley succeed with experiments using iodine early
1954: Edward Zubler begins investigating lamp chemistry 1954: "Quartzline" heat lamps are marketed by GE early
1955: Frederick Mosby begins engineering work on lamp 1956: Pilot-production begins at Nela Park 1957: Halogen used for wing-tip marker lamps on aircraft late
1959: GE announces 500 watt lamp for general lighting 1962: Low-rate production of the lamp begins at Nela Park 1964: New York World's Fair - GE halogen lamps demonstrated on Unisphere
Philips introduces bromine-cycle halogen lamp top Metal Halide Lamp: 1912: Charles Steinmetz patents a mercury lamp with halogens 1950: Otto Neunhoeffer & Paul Schulz (Germany) patent a mercury lamp with halogens 1959: H33 mercury vapor lamp announced by Osram (Germany)
Gilbert Reiling (US) begins work on improving the color of GE's mercury lamps June
1960: Reiling reports experimental success to GE Research Lab management August 1960: Bernhard Kühl & Horst Krense (Germany) file for a metal halide lamp patent January 1961: GE files for a U.S. patent on Reiling's lamp 1961: Reiling and the metal halide project move (separately) from Schenectady to Nela Park February 1962: U.S. Patent Office rejects Reiling's application citing prior art
GE publicly announces "Multi-Vapor®" lamp July
1962: GE "traverses" Patent Office rejection, claiming that Reiling's lamp differs from prior art May
1964: The Patent Office allows some claims in Reiling's application
Metal halide lamps are demonstrated at the New York World's Fair 1964: Westinghouse adds "B.O.C.®" ("Better Output and Color") lamp
Sylvania announces "Metal-Arc®" lamp
West German Patent # 1,184,008 issued to Kühl & Krense June
1965: Reiling demonstrates lamps at the U.S. Patent Office February 1966: U.S. Patent # 3,234,421 issued to Reiling 1966: Sylvania announces "frameless" lamp top High-Pressure Sodium Lamp: 1954: Joseph Burke begins sintering experiments with alumina at GE Schenectady 1956: Fluorescent lamp co-inventor George Inman sees Burke's work and initiates lamp-related research at GE Nela Park early
1957: Robert Coble adds magnesium to the alumina and achieves light transmission exceeding 90% early
1958: Pilot-plant to make Poly-Crystalline Alumina (PCA) at Nela Park June
1958: GE files for a patent on Coble's innovation August
1959: GE files for patents on Kurt Schmidt's, William Louden's, and Elmer Homonnay's work on lamps using PCA December
1962: GE announces the "Lucalox®" lamp 1964: Sylvania announces the "Lumalux®" lamp 1965: GE "Lucalox®" lamp first appears in product catalog 1968: GE "Lucalox®" lamp redesigned after initial problems 1976: Westinghouse introduces a "Ceramalux®" lamp with a clear, single-crystal "Corstar Sapphire®" arc-tube from Gerald Meiling's team at Corning Glass top Compact Fluorescent Lamp: 1964: Red-emitting rare earth phosphors introduced for color television tubes 1970: John Anderson [GE Schenectady] experimental "SEF" (Solenoidal Electric Field) lamp early
1972: John Campbell [GE Nela Park] experimental "Sequential Switching" lamp 1974: William Roche [GTE Sylvania] experimental "Short Arc" lamp 1975: Robert Young & Allen Reed [Westinghouse] experimental "Partition" lamp 1976: Jan Hasker [Philips - Eindhoven] experimental "Recombinant Structure" lamps
Donald Hollister [Lighting Technology Corp.] experimental "Litek" electrodeless lamp
GE commercial "Circlite" lamp 1977: Edward Hammer [GE Nela Park] experimental "Spiral-tube" lamp
Leo Gross & Merrill Skeist [Spellman Electronics] "M.A.S." (Magnetic Arc Spreader) lamp 1978: J.M.P.J. Verstegen, D. Radielovic', and L.E. Vrenken [Philips] rare-earth phosphors with an alumina host-lattice 1980: Philips commercial "SL-18®" lamp
Westinghouse commercial "Econ-Nova®" lamp 1983: Philips commercial "PL-9®" lamp top Silica Carbide Filament Lamp: November
1971: James Shyne and John Milewski patent for "Method of Growing Silicon Carbide Whiskers" April
1985: Milewski receives patent for silicon carbide "Articles" used for structural reinforcement 1987: Peter Milewski science fair project investigating silica carbide whiskers takes 3rd place in competition
Superkinetic Inc. founded and operated from Milewskis' home September
1989: U.S. Patent # 4,864,186 for "Single Crystal Whisker Electric Light Filament" granted to John and Peter Milewski 1991: Electric Power Research Institute begins funding research on the lamp
Research is moved into lab space at the University of New Mexico 1993: Superkinetic receives funding from a joint NIST - DOE program 1995: Research is moved to a new building in Albuquerque top Microwave - Sulfur Lamp: 1974: Fusion Systems introduces "TEM" electrodeless ultraviolet lamp for curing inks June
1980: Michael Ury and Chuck Wood unsuccessfully test sulfur in a TEM lamp 1982: Lorne Whitehead receives a patent for a prism light guide October
1982: Ury and Wood file for a patent on the "AEL" a spherical, rotating, UV lamp 1986: Ury unsuccessful with an AEL metal-halide lamp for theatrical use 1989: Fusion Systems introduces the "HI-IQ," an improved spherical, rotating, UV lamp
Whitehead and 3M produce an optical film for lightpipes Spring
1990: Ury and Jim Dolan obtain visible light from sulfur in "HI-IQ" lamps 1992: Fusion Systems collaborates with DOE's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to run further tests on the new lamp December
1992: Fusion Lighting is incorporated to develop and market the sulfur lamp October
1994: Demonstration lamps coupled to lightpipes are installed outside the Forrestal Building, and inside the National Air & Space Museum April
1995: U.S. Patent # 5,404,076 issued to Ury, Wood, and Dolan
Fusion Lighting introduces the "Solar 1000" commercial lamp 1997: Fusion Lighting, and Cooper Lighting introduce a free-standing kiosk fixture using the Sulfur Lamp May
1998: Remote Source Lighting International demonstrates and wins an award for a fiber-optic illuminator driven by a sulfur lamp at an industry trade-show To 20th Century Scripts & Webnotes To 19th Century Timelines
Century Hall To 20th
Century Hall To
Guest Lounge
Preconditions to 20th Century Lamps
"I remember this circumstance very well because of the excitement and surprise and incredulity which he manifested at the time. He asked me over and over again what it
was."
(William D. Coolidge, General Electric scientist, 1909)
Coolidge was recounting Fritz Blau's reaction to a lamp made with bendable (or "ductile") tungsten wire. Blau, an Austrian, had helped invent a "non-ductile" tungsten lamp only a few years earlier and knew well the difficulty of working with this metal. Coolidge's lamp was not the first improvement in Edison's design, nor the last. It built on previous work (such as Blau's) and fueled new work (such as Irving Langmuir's).
Inventors in the late 20th century had access to technical information unknown in Edison's time. Some knowledge came from outside the industry–like phosphor work done for television. But lighting scientists and engineers made many discoveries in the first half of the century, especially in the new industrial laboratories inspired by Edison's Menlo Park and West Orange labs. Research into the physics of electrical discharges, the metallurgy of tungsten, and chemical properties of glass all played a role in creating lamps that became available in the 1930s.
As the technology matured however, the pace of major improvements slowed. Below are some of the major developments of the 1900-1950 era important to lamps in use today.
Incandescent Lamps: Exit Carbon–Enter Tungsten
Non-ductile tungsten lamp
S.I. image #69,208
By 1900 the carbon filament lamp was a mature product in mass production. Electrical efficiency (or "efficacy") remained very low at about 3.5 lumens per watt (lpw). Aside from wasting electricity, these carbon lamps simply did not provide strong light. Inventors, especially in Europe with its high energy costs, searched intently for new filament materials.
Though carbon has the highest melting point of any element, the operating temperature of carbon filament lamps had to be kept relatively low. Very high temperatures caused carbon to evaporate quickly from the filament and coat the inside of the bulb, dimming an already low light. Experiments with various metals were aimed at finding a material that could operate at a higher temperature without so much evaporation. Higher operating temperatures meant brighter, more energy efficient lamps.
Carl Auer van Welsbach of Austria (inventor of the gas mantle) developed the first commercially practical metal filament lamp in 1898 by making filaments with element # 76, osmium. The very brittle filaments gave 5.5 lpw, a significant improvement, but osmium lamps proved difficult and expensive to make. They were replaced in 1902 by lamps invented by Germans Werner von Bolton and Otto Feuerlien, who used element # 73, tantalum. Tantalum lamps produced 5 lpw, a slight drop from osmium that was more than offset by tantalum's greater strength.
Tantalum was in turn superceded by lamps made with element #74, tungsten. Another difficult metal to work with, tungsten lamps like the one seen above gave 8 lpw, and in 1904 three different tungsten lamps appeared on the European market almost simultaneously. American manufacturers licensed and sold both tantalum and first generation tungsten lamps in the U.S.
Many of Edison's carbon lamp patents were expiring around this time and competition was heating up. In 1904, Willis Whitney used the new electrical resistance furnace at GE's Schenectady lab to bake carbon filaments at very high temperatures. The resulting filaments exhibited metal-like properties and gave 4 lpw. Sold as the "General Electric Metallized" or "GEM" lamp, this lamp still achieved only half the efficacy of the new tungsten lamps from Europe.
William Coolidge, also at GE's research lab, began exploring the metallurgy of tungsten. The European lamps were almost as fragile as earlier osmium lamps because tungsten was too brittle to bend ("non-ductile"). Coolidge developed a process to make bendable ("ductile") tungsten wire, and in 1910 GE began selling lamps made with this filament. The lamps gave 10 lpw, and also gave GE strong new patents.
Coolidge's colleague, the future Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir, discovered that by coiling the tungsten filament and placing an inert gas like nitrogen inside the bulb he could obtain 12 lpw or better. Langmuir's lamp joined Coolidge's on the market in 1913, both selling under the "Mazda" trade-name.
Various improvements in both the tungsten lamps themselves and in production machinery occurred during the following forty years. These cut costs drastically but improved lamp efficacy only slightly. By 1950, tungsten lamp technology seemed at a dead-end, especially given the growth of discharge lamps like fluorescent tubes. Some older engineers began advising younger colleagues to avoid staking a career on incandescent research.
Discharge Lamps: Lightning in a Tube
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Cooper Hewitt tube
S.I. image #lar2-1b1
An interesting curiosity of the 19th century were devices called Geissler tubes. German glassblower Heinrich Geissler and physician Julius Plücker discovered that they could produce light by removing almost all of the air from a glass tube and then sending an electric current through the tube as an arc discharge. Poor seals allowed air to seep back in and extinguish the light, but the work spurred research into discharge lighting.
In the first decade of the 20th century, two commercial discharge lamps gained modest popularity. One, invented by American D. McFarlan Moore, used carbon-dioxide or nitrogen filled tubes up to 250 feet long. Moore tubes were more efficient than carbon filament lamps but difficult to install and maintain. A second lamp, invented by American Peter Cooper Hewitt, passed an electric current through mercury vapor. Cooper Hewitt lamps (above) gave off much light and could be made portable, but the light was a garish blue-green suitable for few uses. These lamps contained about a pound of mercury each.
Coolidge's and Langmiur's tungsten filament lamps of the 1910s raised the efficiency standard for all lighting devices. Moore lamps, for one, soon disappeared from the market. Research indicated that very high efficacies might be attainable with discharge lamps however, so work continued.
Building on Moore's work, Georges Claudé of France developed neon tubes in 1910 and showed that a discharge lamp could give 15 lumens per watt–if one wanted red light. Additional European work resulted in a high-intensity mercury vapor lamp (from General Electric Company of England) in 1932. This lamp used a tiny fraction of the mercury needed for Cooper Hewitt lamps, had a screw base, and gave 40 lpw, though its color was still poor.
A collaboration of GEC in England, Philips in The Netherlands, and Osram in Germany produced a low-pressure sodium lamp also in 1932. The key to this lamp lay in a special glass that could withstand the corrosive effects of sodium. The light was a stark yellow suitable only for use in applications like street lighting, but efficacy started out at 40 lpw and reached about 100 lpw by 1960.
Reports began reaching GE and Westinghouse in the late 1920s and early 1930s of French experiments with neon tubes coated with phosphors. A phosphor is a material which absorbs one type of light and radiates another. A German patent in 1927 contained most of the features of a fluorescent tube, but the lamp was not produced.
American scientist Arthur Compton, a consultant to GE, reported seeing a green French lamp giving 30 lpw in 1934. An engineer at GE later wrote that they thought Compton had misplaced a decimal, that the true figure was 3.0 rather than 30 lpw.
The figure, soon confirmed, sparked an intensive research program. In 1936, tubes using low-pressure mercury vapor and a coating of phosphors were demonstrated to the Illuminating Engineering Society and the U.S. Navy. In 1939, GE and Westinghouse introduced fluorescent lamps at both the New York World's Fair and the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. Other lamp makers soon followed.
Despite resistance from some utilities fearing loss of electricity sales, the need for efficient lighting in U.S. war plants resulted in rapid adoption of fluorescent technology. By 1951 industry sources reported that more light in the U.S. was being produced by fluorescent lamps than by incandescent.
Research After Edison: "The Science of Seeing"
Thomas Edison's lamp research focused mostly on the chemistry and engineering of the light bulb itself and its interaction within an electrical system. As researchers began building on Edison's work, the topics broadened to include subjects like optics and the physics of light itself. Edison, intent on inventing, cared little for basic research, but new professional "illuminating engineers" explored the fundamental nature of light and lighting devices.
Photometric curve
S.I. image #lar2-1c1
For example, as metal filament lamps began replacing carbon lamps, the problem of glare arose. Shades for the brighter tungsten lamps had to be designed to both protect eyesight and to more effectively channel light. New applications like automotive and aviation lighting required development of a host of new lamp designs with special electrical and optical characteristics.
Researching human eye response to different colors and light levels became more important as electric lighting began to change people's lifestyles. Questions about the affect of lighting on productivity in both workplace and home carried great economic significance. Development of fluorescent lamps in the late 1930s led to experiments with "windowless factories."
The 1906 establishment of the Illuminating Engineering Society marked a formal recognition that lighting had moved from the realm of lone inventors to that of a profession. Corporate and academic researchers not only presented their work in the form of patents, but also wrote papers that appeared in scholarly journals. A prominent researcher, GE's Matthew Luckiesh described the field as "The Science of Seeing."
Researchers produced light distribution curves for fixtures (above), studied how different consumer groups used light, and developed deeper understandings of the fundamental nature of light. Expensive research equipment, needed to pursue these issues, made it difficult for smaller companies to compete. Lighting design emerged as a special field, distinct from architecture, just as lighting engineers diverged from electrical engineers.
Lighting and radio were the two electrical products that sold well throughout the Great Depression, justifying continued investment in research. The onset of World War II provided stimulated research for military uses of lighting, especially into materials like quartz and ceramics, while blackouts and materials rationing held back civilian purchases. Finally, the postwar economic boom released tremendous demand for lighting. The result proved to be a burst of lighting innovation.