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Hello everyone! Today, I’m going to be showing you how the incandescent light bulb works.

It was first invented by Joseph Swan, but people tried to make it better. However, one had a very big success. You probably know this man. You’re most likely were taught that he was the inventor of the light bulb, but he just improved Joseph Swan’s one. Thomas Edison was the one who made the first improved incandescent light bulb.

The way it worked is simple. He took a metal called tungsten. Tungsten is unique because of its resistance to heat. It can go up to temperatures of 2000°. That’s really hot. He made a little string out of it and then he attached it between two rods. He then connected those rods to a base with some wires. He then started using electricity to heat up the tungsten, via the base. It went through the wires, into the rods, then finally to the tungsten. And it worked very well for around two seconds. Then it blew up. You see, oxygen and hydrogen are very susceptible to heat. And when high temperatures like that get exposed to air, there’s a chemical reaction and it blows up. To stop that, Edison made an airtight glass case around the lightbulb and filled it with inert gas. Inert gases such as krypton are empty so they don’t have anything in them other than themselves. This means there’s no reaction with the oxygen and hydrogen, so it doesn’t blow up. Instead the tungsten creates a glow because there’s so much heat that it starts to turn red and creates light radiation. And that is how incandescent light bulbs work.

You might think that this is very efficient, but it’s not. Not at all. 2% of the heat and energy used is actually turned into light. The rest is just dissolved into heat and is lost. Years later, somebody made the LED. LEDs are much more efficient than incandescent light bulbs. They require less material, they’re more energy efficient, and they’re less expensive to produce. Now you might be thinking if the incandescent one is so inefficient, why do people still use it? Because LEDs weren’t really that popular until a while ago. So people are still using their old incandescent bulbs. They don’t want to spend more money to replace them so if they’re just still there. The only time they’re going to buy LED bulbs is when their incandescents run out. It’s gonna take a bit more time for the old ways to change. But they are changing a lot even now.

Any way, bye everyone and see you later!