Heinrich Goebel (1818 - 1893)
On April 20, 1818, Heinrich Goebel was born to a German family in Springe, Germany. The inventor, Heinrich Goebel installed a zinc-coal battery on the top of his roof and with the electricity he produced was able to light a bright light. This was originally intended to attract more customers to his small shop in New York. The fire brigade was regularly called by neighbours and so the experiments were stopped. Despite this, Heinrich Goebel carried on with experiments and eventually produced a light bulb that could glow for hours. The first step in the right direction was the change of the metal wire to coal. Coal doesn’t have as long wire but the oxygen consumption is a lot less.
Goebel tried all sorts of materials for his experiments until out of sheer coincidence he tried a piece of bamboo from his walking stick. He succeeded with his piece of bamboo fibre that had a thickness of 0.2 mm. The next step of the experiment was for the bamboo fibre to be lit in a vacuum.With his knowledge of mercury barometers he could put the glass bulbs through a mercury vacuum (the vacuum was invented in 1865 by H Sprengel.) Finally in 1854, Goebel was able to make a light bulb that burned bamboo fibres and that had a long burning time. Unfortunately, at the end of November Goebel falls ill with pneumonia and dies on December 4th 1893.
Goebel tried all sorts of materials for his experiments until out of sheer coincidence he tried a piece of bamboo from his walking stick. He succeeded with his piece of bamboo fibre that had a thickness of 0.2 mm. The next step of the experiment was for the bamboo fibre to be lit in a vacuum.With his knowledge of mercury barometers he could put the glass bulbs through a mercury vacuum (the vacuum was invented in 1865 by H Sprengel.) Finally in 1854, Goebel was able to make a light bulb that burned bamboo fibres and that had a long burning time. Unfortunately, at the end of November Goebel falls ill with pneumonia and dies on December 4th 1893.