History of Lighting — how did it all started?
Tags: Lighting, History Of Technology, Illumination, Light, History

Today we don’t imagine the world without light. Lighting leads our every step. There is light in our homes, in our smart devices, in our cars. It is everywhere. But how it all started? What is the real history of lighting? What was the very first lighting source?

Discovery of fire

I guess it is no secret that everything started with fire. That was the first natural source of heating and lighting. It is challenging to say the exact time when it was started to use, but campfires and torches have been used in caves of Peking Man as early as 400 000 years B.C. Actually, archeologists have findings of campfires that are almost 1,5 million years old. Theoretically speaking — lighting is one of the oldest technologies in the world.

Of course, at first, humans weren’t able to create fire. They had to wait for lighting, a volcano eruption, or just a regular forest fire to get what they need. The Discovery of how to create fire started lighting “technology” as something that humans can make artificially. The fire was the center of society; it was the place where people could gather for socializing and cooperation. Later humans found a way to create mobile light — they used simple wooden sticks as torches. Later they found ways to prolong the burning process by using some resins, and all this torch technology was developing until the middle ages.

Next technology — oil lamps, candles, and the wick

The next step to creating artificial lighting was the usage of oil lamps. This solution dates back to 15 000–20 000 years B.C. Prehistoric people were using shells, rocks, or horns to create these lamps. Animal or vegetable fats were used as ignition material and dried grass or wood as combustible material. Humans also used oily animals like fish or birds as the lamps after being threaded with some dry grass.

A massive breakthrough in lighting technologies came as the wick was created. Ir changed the world of lighting source production. In combination with beeswax or tallow, wicks were used to make candles, which was the most advanced lighting technology at that time. And that time is about 400–500 years B.C. Later on, about 200 years B.C., another excellent material for candle production was found — whale fat. With these materials, candles became the most popular and most advanced lighting technology.

Industrial boom and its lighting technologies

The industrial revolution changed the world as it was before. Today we don’t imagine the world without industry, and the industrial boom period was significant for the history of lighting. The industrial revolution brought materials such as coal, petroleum, and gas to create electricity and lighting.

William Murdoch was the person who introduces gas lighting to Pelham Street in Newport, Rhode Island. It was the first city in the world to adopt new street lighting technology in 1792. Soon after that, gas lamps got their acceleration. During few decades, many types of gas were tested, including methane, acetylene, butane, propane, hydrogen, and even natural gas.

Electric lighting as we know it today

The next step in lighting technologies evolution was, actually, the last one — electric lamps. That is what we are still using until these days. Humphry Davy introduced the first electric lamp. He invented a very early form of the so-called arc lamp. This technology is something that we are using until these days. Davy lamp was the very beginning of the electric lighting era.

In 1879 American inventor Thomas Edison invented the long-lasting incandescent lighting bulb. On October 22 ndof the very same year, his lamp burned for 13 and a half hours, and that was the breaking point in the electric lighting revolution. Only a few months later, Edison invented carbonized bamboo filament, which helped the lamp burn up to 1200 hours.

After these inventions, more technologies came. In 1900 first fluorescent lights were introduced by Daniel McFarlan. Parallelly to this invention, Peter Cooper Hewitt presented his mercury-vapor light. The 20 thcentury brought us high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, and later in the same century came a technology that is still extremely popular until these days — LED.

Long story short

Humans already live on the planet Earth for more than 6 million years. That is a vast number. The modern form of humans evolved about 200 000 years ago. However, lighting as a technology in our lives dates back to 1–1,5 million years B.C., and that is by far one of the oldest technologies in the world. Of course, the last 100 years were crazy for every technology, and lighting is no exception. Today we have lights everywhere, but I firmly believe that the history of lighting has just begun.