4. First case study – the subdivision of the light - HM Treasury

F05 Ch4 Subdivision of the light.doc
05/04/2006 19:34:00
Technological roulette – a multi-disciplinary study of the dynamics of innovation in electrical, electronic
and communications engineering.
4. First case study – the subdivision of the light
The technique was essentially a scientific curiosity until viable batteries became
available with the work of Daniell, Grove and Bunsen. Jobard, in 1838, and Grove, in
1840, gave demonstrations of incandescence, but did not produce a practical lighting
system.
An English patent was granted to Frederick De Moleyns in 1841 for a lamp which
consisted of an exhausted spherical glass globe containing two coils of platinum wire
contacted by powdered charcoal.
Jehl 1937
Fig. 4.25 De Moleyn’s lamp
(1841)
J.W. Starr, a young American from
Cincinnati, gained an English patent
EN Pat 10919/1845 which disclosed two forms of
incandescent lamp. One embodiment
comprised a carbon rod in a Torricellian
vacuum whilst the other had a burner
formed from a strip of leaf-platinum.
Reports of this lamp provided Swan with
his initial stimulus to investigate the
possibilities of electric lighting.
Staite and Petrie, who were pioneers
of the arc, constructed glow lamps in the period 1848-9 using platinum
and iridium as the burner materials. Swan encountered these
Jehl 1937
Fig. 4.27 Lodyguine’s
graphite burner lamp
manifestations at a demonstration of a
platino-iridium alloy-based lamp given by Staite at the
Sunderland Athenaeum and by Richardson during
subsequent lectures at the same place.
During the 1850s and 1860s, various workers
performed sporadic experiments on the incandescent lamp
using mainly platinum, iridium or carbon as their burner.
No viable lamp was produced, firstly because they all
suffered the problem encountered during the development
of the arc lamp, that no economic source of electricity was
available, and, secondly, it was not possible to create a high
85
Fürst 1926
Fig. 4.26
Starr’s carbon
rod lamp
(1845)