h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Neon lighting - A842717
Author: Just an innocent bystander - U204844

Hi all, please find my first effort at writing an Entry. I'm open to any and all constructive suggestions.

Hello

You shouldn't be so wary. This is better than a good start. Maybe try it in Peer Review for a few days - if it gets a lot of flak, which I doubt, then bring it back down to Writing Workshop while you rethink.

Otherwise when "you here me think", you "hear me think"!

Trout

This is a good entry and is ready for Peer Review.

I can see a few minor things which you might tidy up:

some form or the other --> some form or other

mercury filled --> mercury-filled

vacumizing -- this is a horrible word. If you have to use it, there should be two u's, but can you find some other way of saying it?

Thanks for the support and suggestions. I've made the corrections and will move it to Peer Review.

Very good and well explained. Didn’t realise such a high voltage was required to make them work.

Just one observation. The sentence.

"the voltage is switched off and the vacuum system starts pulling vacuum in the tube while it cools down"

You cannot pull a vacuum into anything. A vacuum is the absence of any gas. Surely the gas already in the tube is expelled.

Regards

Stuart

Yes, the high voltage is required to allow for the discharge since resistance is pretty high. The current is very low though, just 20-100 mA.

I don't agree with your statement regarding vacuum. In fact, what I describe is exactly what happens : the gas inside the tube is pumped out by the vacuum system. Perhaps the term vacuum system needs additional clarification : this is a (usually glass) system consisting of different valves and gauges that is able to literally pump gas out of the tube using a high vacuum pump such as an oil diffusion pump.

I forgot to mention it in my previous reply but : thanks for reading and commenting !

It's not "vacuum system" that needs clarification, it is the phrase "pulling vacuum in the tube". I suggest replacing it with "creating a vacuum in the tube".

I understand your remark : a vacuum cannot literally be pulled, its the air/gas that's pulled out of the tube and thus the vacuum is created. But "to pull vacuum" is actually a pretty common and accepted phrase when describing this process. Perhaps replacing it with "pulling the tube vacuum" would do the trick. That way it is not insinuated that something is pulled INTO the tube.

Tnx again.

Well I've never heard the phrase "pulling vacuum" before in my life.

try searching on Google on "pulling vacuum" or "to pull vacuum". I know such a search can also be succesful for nonexistent phrases but in this case the number of results should count for something.

I wasn't saying that such a phrase doesn't exist. I was suggesting that it isn't standard British English and as a result may not be familiar to the dear readers. You should rephrase it.

By the way, you'll get used to my brusque manner if you hang around Peer Review. Don't be put off. It's great that you have written the article. I'm just trying to polish it for you.

I know you're trying to help, I appreciate it. See if you can live with what I added.

Time for Peer Review

Seems the "pulling a vacuum" is a particularly American phrase. You can create a vacuum or destroy a vacuum, but pulling one, nah!

Stuart

Alright alright, enough on the semantics
It's quite possible that the phrase is typically American that I just picked up over the years. For non-native English speakers/writers it's quite difficult at times to distinguish between words&phrases that are either typically English or American.