Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson, 1828–1914, English chemist and physicist. He made an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament (1860), 20 years before Edison's lamp. Noted for important contributions to photography as well, he devised the first commercially practical process for carbon printing, introduced the dry plate, and invented bromide paper. Swan also experimented with the production of man-made fibers. He was knighted in 1904.
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