How many times did thomas Edison try his invention the light bulb?

Answer 1

Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb! He improved a design which had been invented 50 years earlier.

In 1806 Humphrey Davy, an English chemist, demonstrated a powerful electric lamp to the Royal Society. This lamp arc'ed a voltage between two rods of carbon and qualifies as the first electric light bulb.

In 1845 an American J.W.Starr working on trying to produce an incandescent filament patented a bulb with a vacuum. The Englishman Joeseph Swan ran with this idea and tried various elements improving on the longevity of the light bulb but ultimately failed. He used carbonised paper as the filament but it just didn't last long enough to make it practical.

Finally Edison became interested in this field of research and first partnered Swan then bought out his patent. He then started to experimented with over a thousand different filament typesbefore discovering the carbon impregnated bamboo which stayed lit for over 1200 hours.

There were other pretenders to the crown of the first light bulb too. Henrich Goebel testified in a court case where Edison was defending a patent challenge that he had seen and experimented with electric light bulbs back in Germany as far back as 1854 but he never patented it.

So Edison's claim to the light bulb is that he improved on a previous patent.

Answer 2

Thomas Edison famously tried thousands of different materials before finding a suitable filament for his light bulb. It is believed that he made around 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before finally succeeding.