History of lighting

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Red sandstone oil lamp found near the well in the Lascaux Cave , approx. 17,000 years old (15,000 BC)

This article describes the historical development of light sources .

Timetable

Open flames

The three great cultural achievements of fire for early mankind are cooking, heating and lighting . (W.Schivelbusch)

Until barely more than a hundred years ago, the open flame was the only known means of lighting. One of the oldest and widespread artificial light sources in Central Europe was Kienspan , a resin-soaked piece of wood, mostly made from the particularly resin-rich pine . An old name for the pine is pine , hence the name. Pine wood is created by an external injury to the tree bark: the tree produces more resin to close the wound, which hardens - the wood silts . If you cut this point into thin chips, you get a good light source that shines for minutes.

The torch developed from the pine chip . A log is artificially enriched with a particularly brightly burning material such as resin or pitch until it forms a club-shaped thickening at the top. The original log was no longer used as fuel , but only as a holder.

Wicks and lamps

Oil lamp or Walratlampe the 18th century. Sheet iron with cotton wick. from Germany

With the oil lamp , these functions are separated from each other. The wick now serves as the burning point, and the fuel required to feed it comes from a separate fuel container. In the torch, people still experience the fire in its destructive elemental force, in the steadily and calmly burning candle or the flame of the oil lamp, the fire is calmed and regulated. Various vegetable and animal fats, oils and wax were used as fuel. Rapeseed and rapeseed oil was first produced in Germany in the 16th century, and a certain security of supply for light fuels was created. The use of a wick is seen as the "first revolution in lighting technology".

The bulbs in the 18th century were for the nobility or the middle bourgeoisie and Großbourgeosie mainly of beeswax candles, while the people of the Third Estate 'arms to illumination by burning some of sebum and Tran resorted. The price for candle wax under Louis XIV corresponded to the daily wage of a factory worker or craftsman, about 2.5 livre . Tallow candles were whitened with arsenic . It was not until 1725 that the Walrat, an inherently white candle base, was used primarily for luxury candles. Burning candles also had to be constantly “cleaned” (“blown”), the burned-off wick was shortened so that more soot or dripping from the candles was contained. Braided wicks did not appear until the end of the century.

But oil lamps were also widespread, such as the Cardan lamp and, from 1783, the Argand lamp . At the end of the 18th century, the Swiss Aimé Argand developed a round wick which, thanks to a higher oxygen supply, enabled a higher burning temperature and thus a cleaner burning of the fuel. A glass cylinder placed over the flame calmed the burning process and thus the emission of light, and a rotating mechanism made it possible to raise or lower the wick and thus generate more or less light. The French philosopher Marquer admired the Argand lamp in 1793 : “The effect of this lamp is particularly beautiful. Its extraordinarily bright, lively and almost blinding light surpasses that of all conventional lamps, and it does not develop any smoke ... Besides, I could not perceive the slightest odor around the flame. " After the discovery of oil fields in Pennsylvania was petroleum preferred as a cheaper and cleaner fuel the organic oil. Even the kerosene lamp , which was now widely used, burned according to the Argand principle.

Gas light

In 1862, Friedrich Wöhler discovered a method of extracting acetylene gas from specially burnt lime . As soon as calcium carbide ( carbide ) comes into contact with water, the flammable gas ( ethine ) is produced, which burns with an extremely bright flame and was immediately used as a pit lamp for illuminating caves and mine tunnels using a carbide lamp . In order to be able to use the calcium carbide, it is filled into a gas generator consisting of two chambers. The upper chamber contains water and the lower chamber contains the carbide. A regulating screw adjusts the water flow to the carbide underneath and thus also the amount of gas produced. The escaping gas is led to a nozzle and burns with a bright, yellow and slightly sooty flame. The field of application of the new generation of lamps was by no means limited to miner's lamps. Motorcycle and car headlights, bicycle lamps, train lamps, hand lamps, table and wall lamps show the wide range of applications and versatility of the carbide lamp. Calcium phosphide impurities during the manufacturing process lead to the formation of monophosphine when water is added , which develops a garlic-like odor. This, and the fact that Ethin does not burn completely, meant that this lighting technology hardly found its way into living rooms.

The industrially produced hard coal gas , which was produced as a waste product from the coking of hard coal and was used as fuel for industrial and street lighting, was more odorless. This gas light , however, was dependent on a pipe system and did not find its way into private households of the bourgeoisie until the end of the 19th century in newly industrialized England and soon afterwards also in Germany, especially in cities.

While the wick was celebrated as a lighting technology revolution as a burning point in the oil lamp, it was missing again in the gas light. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, for example, observes in his glimpses of light : "What caught the eye of the first viewer of the gas flame, in addition to its dazzling brightness, was the lack of the familiar wick." But what was considered bright back then, we would now call intimate or dim.

Distance light

The open gas flame as a light source was limited to a relatively low spatial light emission. The incandescent light, on the other hand, behaved differently, shining so bright and hot that a distance was needed to illuminate large areas and was therefore also called distance light . Carl Auer von Welsbach transferred the principle of white glow, which Humphry Davy had discovered in his carbon arc lamp in 1800 , to gas lighting technology. Only one bunsen flame was needed to get the thorium-cerium mantle to glow, which resulted in a significantly higher light output with far lower gas consumption.

Since there was already a supply network, the bright incandescent gas light temporarily became a serious competitor to the currently new but still expensive electric light, for which a distribution structure first had to be created. Gas light was still the predominant lighting technology in industry and urban modernity around 1900. The disadvantages of the immobility of the light source with an expensive supply network and the extreme heat development and fire hazard persisted and prevented the gas light from spreading across the board outside the cities.

electricity

Carl Saltzmann: First electric street lighting in Berlin , 1884

The spread of electric light was an important element of the social transformation process of the 19th century. (B. Binder)

The “ Jablotschkow candle ”, a special charcoal arc lamp, gave off light for one to two hours by burning two charcoal sticks. It was not the flame that was responsible for the glow, but the white glow of the coal. This light, extremely bright and dazzling, was only used for industrial and outdoor lighting. A central supply network could not be set up, the electricity required was produced directly on site at the arc lamp. Because of its unchangeable, glistening brightness, arc light did not find its way into the residential buildings, although for the first time it actually turned “night into day”.

A revolution in the lighting sector was initiated in 1879 by Thomas Edison . The principle of the carbon filament light bulb had Humphry Davy already conceived in 1800, but he could derive no economic benefit. Edison was the first to develop a more durable filament made from bamboo carbon fibers that increased the burn time to around 40 hours. He also knew how to put together a complete system of power generation, distribution, switches and fuses, which allowed electric light to be handled by everyone and the components to be produced on an industrial scale. The triumphant advance of electric lighting began. However, electrical lighting was initially considered a luxury that could not be granted to everyone.

In order to displace the prevailing gas incandescent lighting, however, a more durable incandescent lamp was required . The same Carl Auer, who had also optimized the gas light, invented the metal filament light bulb ten years after Edison's carbon filament. This development was characterized by brighter light and a significantly longer service life. The tungsten alloys used today come from the American William David Coolidge , who worked for General Electric from 1909 . Osram ( osmium and tungsten) and Wotan (tungsten and tantalum ) competed in Germany for a few years for supremacy in incandescent lamp production, until the respective producers Siemens and AEG (with Karl Auer AG) decided to jointly produce under the name Osram and that Bringing modern lighting completely under control.

20th century

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
This section only describes the development of the incandescent lamp . LED , halogen lamp , fluorescent tube etc. are missing - Torsch 15:17, 21 Aug. 2011 (CEST)
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

High costs for electricity production and power supply delayed the spread of electric light in the 20th century. At the end of the 1920s, Berlin was only 50% connected to the power grid. Electricity was initially viewed as a pure light source, and there were hardly any other electrical devices. The high connection costs to the power supply network and the high prices for not particularly long-lasting lamps made “light”, as electricity was popularly known, a luxury good for wealthy citizens. The electrical industry had to make financial concessions when it came to connecting cables and even supplying light bulbs. Some communities took the initiative and helped finance the electrification of their residents. Nevertheless, it took until the 1940s for all of Germany to be connected to the power grid.

Especially in cities, the meanwhile well-developed incandescent gas light with its already existing supply network was a serious competitor, which delayed the spread of electricity in lucrative markets. Electricity as a power source for labor-saving electric motors or as lighting energy for work areas that can be better used as a result provided economic arguments. Electric light for private living areas was approved as a convenient side effect. The electricity producers at that time advertised the economic efficiency of electricity in comparison to gas light, with the comfort and with the social prestige factor.

Initially, the advantages outweighed. You could work at night, take care of the house and yard, which in the past you often had no time. Shift and night work began in the factories, which could now be fully lit around the clock. Work and living spaces were functionally separated from each other. The whole house could be sufficiently lit as required and was now ready for full use even during the dark. The streets were added to the nocturnal habitat. There was no smell of petroleum, the danger of the house and yard burning down seemed to have been averted. Clean, practical, modern have become attributes of electrical energy and pioneers of a new era. The threat to the environment from electricity production ( coal-fired power plants , water dams , nuclear reactors ) and the associated health risk from the supposedly clean energy were only considered later. The annual increase in light pollution averages 6% worldwide.

Quotes

“We see every time in the history of lighting that there is a new technology, it doesn't actually save any energy. We make the earth brighter and brighter. "

- Christopher Kyba from the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam

Museums on the history of lighting

  • Gas lantern open-air museum Berlin , Germany (focus: gas-based outdoor lighting, Berlin)
  • Lumina Domestica. The Lamp Museum in Bruges , Belgium (all eras, all types of lighting, all regions)
  • Mulum. Musée du Luminaire in Liège , Belgium (all eras, all types of lighting, all regions)
  • Historical lighting museum at the Selux company in Berlin, Germany (focus: electrical lighting, Berlin)

See also

literature

  • Looked at with light: the ABC of lighting. , Pulheim 1987 (publications of the Rheinisches Museumamt 38)
  • Beate Binder : Electrification as a vision. On the symbolic history of a technology in everyday life. Tübingen Association for Folklore eV Tübingen 1999
  • Elke Hartkopf: More light! Easier work. In: The electricity is coming! Electrification in the Eifel and Moselle region. Edited by Eifel museums working group. Meckenheim 1996
  • Brigitte Heck: From Kienspan to lightbulb. In: The electrified society. Catalog for the exhibition of the Badisches Landesmuseum. Arranged by Gisela Grasmück. Karlsruhe 1996
  • Wolfgang Schivelbusch: Bright spots. On the history of artificial brightness in the 19th century. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1983
  • Burchard Sielmann: cheapest operation - easiest operation. In: The electricity is coming! Electrification in the Eifel and Moselle region. Edited by Eifel museums working group. Meckenheim 1996
  • Ladislaus Edler von Benesch: The lighting system from the Middle Ages to the middle of the XIX. Century ... , Vienna 1905
  • Frank Dittmann, Günther Luxbacher (Ed.): History of electrical lighting , history of electrical engineering Volume 26, VDE Verlag, Berlin / Offenbach 2017, ISBN 978-3-8007-4355-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ General Electric: History of Light - Time Line ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gelighting.com
  2. ↑ U.S. Patent 2,883,571
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Schivelbusch: Argand or the rationalization of the wick. Lichtblicke (1983) (PDF; 394 kB)
  4. ↑ "The Minister of Public Works [...] decided that a need for the introduction of electrical lighting in service and state-owned rental apartments of middle and lower civil servants could not be recognized". (Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of February 18, 1905, No. 10. Announcement No. 83, p. 61).
  5. ↑ Juliane Neubauer: Light pollution despite LEDs - no salvation for the night sky In: detektor.fm, 23 November 2017, accessed on 5 December 2017.
  6. ↑ Lumina Domestica. The Lamp Museum. Lumina Domestica, accessed August 4, 2018 (French, Dutch).
  7. ↑ Mulum. Musée du Luminaire. In: Collections et actualités des musées de la Ville de Liège. Retrieved August 4, 2018 (French).
  8. ↑ Historical lighting museum near Selux. Time travel into the world of electric lighting in Berlin. In: Selux AG website. Retrieved August 4, 2018 .