Light Bulbs
Created | Updated Oct 23, 2003
Light bulbs
The first electric light bulb was invented by the sparking mr Edison.
He used a carbonated iron wire inside a sealed glass bulb. By applying current trough the wire it heats up, partly burning the carbon to carbondioxide. With no oxigen left in the bulb and a firm support the wirewould last for hours! If heated high enough the wire will emit light.
Modern lightbulbs are made with tungstun double coiled wires and filled with low pressure inert gasses.
Halogen lights are basically the same. They use a much higher temperature then an ordinary wire would survive. Above the evaporation temperature of the wire the wire will evaporate, sounds fine. The gas filling of halogen bulbs and the quarts glass bulb keep the evaporation and recondensation (on the wire) in balance. Permitted the inside of the glas gets warm enough.
If you concider these you will understand why not to dim halogen lights and why to double isolate them in cold envionments.
Neon lights (for ome reasons my favourites)
Olso gas filled bulbs with glowing wires.
Concider there is some mixture of Neon, Mercury and some other gasses in a tube. If you manage to exitate these gasses, that is something like letting the outer electrons do a little dance. Humans will not see anything happen. By falling back toward the nucleus of their atom the electrons emit a tiny amount of energy in the Ultra Violet range. Neon lights will always need a coating to radiate light in the human visible range.
Xenon lights
Some people deny these are lights while they give at their best bursts of flashes. Xenon electrons emit an average of blueish light which is visible to the human eye. A nice Xenon light gives some 1 to 1000 flashes per minute. Most are used to take photographs in the dark, to draw attention, to navigate or to desorientate.
The first electric light bulb was invented by the sparking mr Edison.
He used a carbonated iron wire inside a sealed glass bulb. By applying current trough the wire it heats up, partly burning the carbon to carbondioxide. With no oxigen left in the bulb and a firm support the wirewould last for hours! If heated high enough the wire will emit light.
Modern lightbulbs are made with tungstun double coiled wires and filled with low pressure inert gasses.
Halogen lights are basically the same. They use a much higher temperature then an ordinary wire would survive. Above the evaporation temperature of the wire the wire will evaporate, sounds fine. The gas filling of halogen bulbs and the quarts glass bulb keep the evaporation and recondensation (on the wire) in balance. Permitted the inside of the glas gets warm enough.
If you concider these you will understand why not to dim halogen lights and why to double isolate them in cold envionments.
Neon lights (for ome reasons my favourites)
Olso gas filled bulbs with glowing wires.
Concider there is some mixture of Neon, Mercury and some other gasses in a tube. If you manage to exitate these gasses, that is something like letting the outer electrons do a little dance. Humans will not see anything happen. By falling back toward the nucleus of their atom the electrons emit a tiny amount of energy in the Ultra Violet range. Neon lights will always need a coating to radiate light in the human visible range.
Xenon lights
Some people deny these are lights while they give at their best bursts of flashes. Xenon electrons emit an average of blueish light which is visible to the human eye. A nice Xenon light gives some 1 to 1000 flashes per minute. Most are used to take photographs in the dark, to draw attention, to navigate or to desorientate.
