who invented the incandescent light bulb

Thomas Edison did not literally invent the first incandescent light bulb; he created the first practical , long‑lasting, commercially successful incandescent bulb in 1879, building on decades of work by earlier inventors.

Quick Scoop

• Early experimenters like Humphry Davy, Warren de la Rue, and others produced incandescent lamps in the 1800s, but their designs were too short‑lived or too expensive to use widely.

• British chemist Joseph Swan developed a working incandescent filament lamp and demonstrated it publicly in 1878–1879, around the same time as Edison.

• In 1879, Thomas Edison patented and demonstrated a high‑resistance carbon‑filament bulb with a good vacuum that could burn for many hours and be manufactured and distributed as part of a complete lighting system.

• Because Edison’s design was reliable, relatively affordable, and tied to an electrical distribution network, history remembers him as the “inventor of the light bulb,” even though he actually perfected and commercialized it rather than originating the very first idea.

So who “really” invented it?

If you’re looking for a one‑name answer people commonly give, it’s Thomas Edison for the practical incandescent light bulb.
If you’re looking for historical nuance, the incandescent light bulb was the result of many contributors, with key late‑stage roles played by Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison, whose versions finally made electric light usable in everyday life.

A good way to think of it: many people invented a light bulb; Edison (and Swan) invented the one the world could actually live with.