INTRODUCTION

From the earliest periods of history until the beginning of the 19th century, fire was man's primary source of light.
This light was produced through different meanstorches, candles , oil and gas lamps. Besides the danger presented by an open flame (especially when used indoors), these sources of light also provided insufficient illumination.

The first attempts at using electric light were made by English chemist Sir Humphry Davy. In 1802, Davy showed that electric currents could heat thin strips of metal to white heat, thus producing light. This was the beginning of incandescent (defined as glowing with intense heat) electric light.

The next major development was the arc light. This was basically two electrodes, usually made of carbon, separated from each other by a short air space.
Electric current applied to one of the electrodes flowed to and through the other electrode resulting in an arc of light across the air space. Arc lamps (or light bulbs) were used mainly in outdoor lighting; the race was still on among a large group of scientists to discover a useful source of indoor illumination

INVENTION OF BULB

Thomas A. Edison, a young inventor working in Menlo Park, New Jersey, began working on his own form of electric light in the 1870s. In 1877 Edison became involved with the rush for a satisfactory electric light source, devoting his initial involvement to confirming the reasons for his competitors' failures.

He did, however, determine that platinum made a much better burner than carbon. Working with platinum, Edison obtained his first patent in April of 1879 on a relatively impractical lamp, but he continued searching for an element that could be heated efficiently and economically.

He finally selected carbonized cotton thread as his filament material.

The filament was clamped to platinum wires that would carry current to and from the filament.
This assembly was then placed in a glass bulb that was fused at the neck (called sealing-in). A vacuum pump removed the air from the bulb, a slow but crucial step. Lead-in wires that would be connected to the electrical current protruded from the glass bulb.

Although the incandescent lamp was the first and certainly the least expensive type of light bulb, there are a host of other light bulbs that serve myriad uses:

Tungsten halogen lamps

Fluorescent lamps are glass tubes that contain mercury vapor and argon gas. When electricity flows through the tube, it causes the vaporized mercury to give off ultraviolet energy. This energy then strikes phosphors that coat the inside of the lamp, giving off visible light. Mercury vapor lamps have two bulbsthe arc tube (made of quartz) is inside a protecting glass bulb. The arc tube contains mercury vapor at a higher pressure than that of the fluorescent lamp, thus allowing the vapor lamp to produce light without using the phosphor coating.

Neon lamps are glass tubes, filled with neon gas, that glow when an electric discharge takes place in them. The color of the light is determined by the gas mixture; pure neon gas gives off red light.
Metal halide lamps, used primarily outdoors for stadiums and roadways, contain chemical compounds of metal and halogen. This type of lamp works in much the same fashion as the mercury vapor lamps except that metal halide can produce a more natural color balance when used without phosphors. High-pressure sodium lamps are also similar to mercury vapor lamps; however, the arc tube is made of aluminum oxide instead of quartz, and it contains a solid mixture of sodium and mercury.

LAMP IDENTIFICATION
Lamp manufacturers use a rather simple code to identify each lamp type.
Such a code might look like:

25 T 10 / IF 120V
WATTAGE BULB SHAPE BULB SIZE BULB FINISH RATED VOLTAGE (eg: lamp to be used on 120 volt circuit)