Why is the filament of a light bulb made from tungsten?

Answer 1

Tungsten is used because it has the highest melting point of all the metallic elements. It melts at 3410 degrees Celsius. When current passes through the filament it heats it up. When the filament reaches a certain temperature it starts to give off light, that's how you get a light bulb.

Answer 2

it is used bcoz it has a high melting point and thus it does not melt in lamps...
Tungsten is used in filaments because it is lightweight and can conduct heat very quickly. It can also attain very high temperatures without melting.
Tungsten is used because it has a high melting point and retains its strength in temperature extremes.
Tungsten-based alloys are used because tungsten has the highest melting point and the lowest thermal expansion coefficient of any metal. Both these properties are very useful for a light bulb filament.

A low melting point would mean the bulb couldn't be operated at high temperatures, and the light would be yellowish or reddish.

A high thermal expansion coefficient would mean that the length of the filament would change a lot when it was heated; this would cause mechanical problems as the filament expanded and contracted with use.

More information

Experiments were made with different materials to use as the filament, including natural fibres, pure metals and alloys of different metals, to find the material which had the longest life whilst glowing brightly enough to give out visible light. The metal Tungsten was found to be the best, because of its high melting point (almost 3700 K) and good resistance to electrical current.
as it has a high melting point and retains its strength in temperature extremes .
Being a metal it will conduct electricity and because it has the highest melting point of all the non-alloyed metals (and the second highest of all the elements after carbon) and thus will not melt at the point at which it is incandescent.
the only metal that will light up in the whole world is the tungsten so they uses the tungsten for the light bulb filaments.
/ because of the high melting point
Because Tungsten has a very high heat of fusion where it would take great energy to change from one phase to another. In this case, solid to liquid, thus it will remain solid as long as its heat of fusion is below its maximum heat of fusion. Additionally, Tungsten has a superb tensile strength that allow it to overcome extreme stress.
high atomic number high melting point
Tungsten has a very high melting and boiling point infact it has the highest and so therefore it wont easily melt.
It stays together much longer than the carbon filament Edison used. That wire gets very hot.
The metal tungsten is used for the filaments in incandescent bulbs. It has a high melting point and retains its strength when heated. The tungsten's resistance makes it glow white-hot, and inert gases (mostly nitrogen) in the bulbs keep the tungsten from oxidizing.

Answer 3

Edison tried many different materials to invent a light bulb that works. After 1,000 failures he finally found tungsten worked best.
Because of the heat, out of all the metals, tungsten has the highest melting point.
Correction: Edison arrived at carbon, not tungsten. Tungsten was first used in 1911 by General Electric physicist WD Coolidge. It glowed brighter and was less fragile than Edison's carbon thread.

Answer 4

Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal. If you heat a metal, it will get hot enough to become red, then orange, then instead of becoming yellow to green, it will become white, then it becomes blue. (If you have pictures of stars, you can tell their temperatures by looking at their color.) If you have an iron filament, shortly after it turns red, it will melt. Soon you will have drops of iron all over the inside of your lightbulb. The tungsten filament will remain in one piece as it heats up to the proper temperature.

Answer 5

Because of its ability to stay solid at high temperatures. However tungsten is hardly used exclusively for lighting purposes. Its presence can be found in really hard metallic alloys, electrons, lubricants and as a cheap gold "substitute" in jewelry due to the similar densities of gold and tungsten.

Answer 6

as tungsten have high melting and boiling point and conducts electricity so thats why it is used in bulb filaments.this is due to the strong metallic bonding and because it have sea of delocalised electron or sea of mobile electrons.

Answer 7

Because it can be heated white hot w/o being consumed.