Flashlights

Flashlights are portable hand held electric spotlight. Flashlights can be a an electric torch or a simple torch. The term differs with countries as in United States it is called the flashlights and in Commonwealth countries it is known as an electric torch.

Flashlight was first discovered in the year 1896 by Joshua Lionel Cowen. Initially, the invention was not successful, but later when the company was taken over by Corad Hubert, it was renamed American Electrical Novelty & Manufacturing Company. David Misell reformed the earlier invention and produced tubular flashlight. Earlier, these torches ran on zinc-carbon batteries. As these torches could not provide sustained currents and could be used only in brief flashes, the equipment became popular as “Flashlights”.

A Flashlight comprises of a light bulb, with a parabolic reflector, runs on electric batteries and has an electric power switch. With developments and advanced technology, today's flashlight runs on light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The first LED flashlight was used in the year 2001and was known as Arc LS. Another type of flashlight are the High Intensity Discharge (HID) flashlights. This works on electric currents which passes through a ball of ionized gas. Some flashlights run on mechanical power which has inbuilt electrical generator.

Flashlights are used in several purposes, they are widely and most commonly used in photography.