Who Invented the Black Light?

Abstract

If you ask a search engine, “Who invented the black light?,” odds are very good that the answer you will receive is “Dr. William H. Byler in 1935.” But, in fact, Dr. Byler never claimed to have invented the long-wave ultraviolet light, no such invention is recorded in any of his papers or patents, and what is certainly what we today call the “blacklight” was invented over fifteen years earlier. So who really did invent it, and how did Byler’s name and date get on it? We look into the history and development of the ultraviolet lamp and at the work of Dr. Byler.