Historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison of … See more

Less than 5% of the power consumed by a typical incandescent light bulb is converted into visible light, with most of the rest being emitted as invisible infrared radiation. Light bulbs are rated by their luminous efficacy, which is th… See more

Incandescent light bulbs consist of an air-tight glass enclosure (the envelope, or bulb) with a filament of tungsten wire inside the bulb, through which an electric current is passed. Contact wires and a base with two (or more) c… See more

Early bulbs were laboriously assembled by hand. After automatic machinery was developed, the cost of bulbs fell. Until 1910, when Libbey's Westlake machine went into production, bulbs were generally produced by a team … See more

Carbon has the highest melting point of any element, and in carbon arc lamps it had been demonstrated to produce incandescence fairly close to that of sunlight. However, carbon has a tendency to … See more

Incandescent lamps are nearly pure resistive loads with a power factor of 1. Unlike discharge lamps or LED lamps, the power consumed is equal to the apparent power in the circuit. Incandescent light bulbs are usually … See more