Joseph Swan

Joseph Wilson Swan ( born October 31, 1828 in Sunderland, Durham, England, † May 27 1914 in Warlingham, Surrey, England ) was an English physicist, chemist and inventor who ( usually together with Edison, the first patents on commercially usable light bulbs had ) as the "inventor of the light bulb " ( applies to practical use ).

Life

As a young man Swan saw a demonstration of the new light bulb Welsh William Grove, but was too expensive and did not last long. 1860 Swan developed its own light bulb, in which he used as a filament charred paper in a vacuum flask; until 1878 he succeeded thanks to the revolutionary Sprengel 's mercury pump of living in England German Hermann Sprengel that could produce a much better vacuum, producing a practically usable electrical bulb, beginning in 1879 led Swan them in Newcastle before. He equipped his light bulbs with a special version of Swanfassung that, in contrast to the screw threads of the Edison incandescent lamps with vibration, for example, in vehicles, not solved. After initial patent litigation he could with the Americans Edison, who invented shortly after him in the fall of 1879 in the U.S., a similar lamp and in England before Swan had patented, some and eventually founded in London in 1883 a jointly operated company even in 1879. The Mosley Street in Newcastle was the first electrically lit street of England, support the needed lamp factory was in Benwell.

When searching for a better carbon filament he found a process for manufacture of synthetic fibers, thereby nitrocellulose is forced through a spinneret and drawn into long threads. Swan also dealt with the newly discovered photography and invented in 1871 using Bromidpapier a dry method, which he patented in 1879, his Bromidpapier could be used due to the chemical nature in photographic printing.

In his honor, is awarded the Swan Medal.