The electric bulb is most commonly credited to Thomas Alva Edison, who patented a practical, long‑lasting incandescent lamp in 1880 and built the first full electric lighting system around it.

However, the story is richer than a single name:

  • Before Edison, several inventors created early electric lights and bulb‑like devices, including Humphry Davy (arc lamp in the early 1800s) and others working on incandescent filaments.
  • In Britain, Joseph Swan developed and publicly demonstrated an incandescent lamp in 1878–79 and is often co‑credited with the invention of the light bulb, especially in European accounts.
  • Edison’s key achievement was making a practical bulb (using improved carbon filaments) and pairing it with generators, meters, and a distribution network so that homes and streets could be lit reliably and commercially.

So in everyday school‑type answers, “Thomas Alva Edison invented the electric bulb” is accepted as correct, but historians point out that Joseph Swan and several earlier experimenters were crucial to the invention we now call the electric light bulb.