Shari Della Penna
  • Home
  • About
    • My family
    • My work
    • My favorites
    • FAQ's
  • Contact
  • Blog

"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
   Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
   ​Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
                         Author, Advocate, Advisor

A Lightbulb Moment

5/3/2022

0 Comments

 
At night, of course the dark went out and spread itself against the doors and windows of Lazlo’s house. … But in the morning, the dark would be back in the basement where it belonged. … and without the dark, everything would be light, and you would never know if you needed a lightbulb.
                                                       from The Dark
                                         written by Lemony Snicket
                                            illustrated by Jon Klassen
                                             Little, Brown & Co., 2013
   
    I usually wake up before the sun. I can use the bathroom, turn on my coffee pot, feed the cats, and find my way to my reading chair before I turn on a light. If I’m lucky enough to have a book downloaded on my Libby app, I can read on my phone or iPad and not turn a light on all morning.
    It’s not that I have anything against electricity or that I prefer the dark. Even though he did not act alone, Thomas Edison was really onto something when he invented the lightbulb. Roads and stores, barbershops, playgrounds, and sidewalks are safer if we can avoid trippers and other hazards as we move through our day. 
    But, let’s step back into history. Remember that kite and key experiment we all learned about in elementary school? Well, turns out Benjamin Franklin didn’t really discover electricity after all. According to an article on the Franklin Institute’s website, people were aware of electricity for thousands of years before that famous experiment. What Ben Franklin (and his son) proved by flying a kite in a thunderstorm was the connection between lightning and electricity.             
    Franklin’s kite was a simple square. He attached a wire to the top to attract lightning to his kite. He attached a length of hemp to the bottom and a silk thread to the hemp. He attached a metal key to the silk thread. Then he waited for the thunder and lightning. When lightning struck the kite, it traveled through the hemp, soaked by the rain, to the silk, kept dry in his hand. When Franklin noticed that the loose hemp strands stood out in every direction, he moved his knuckle toward the key. He felt an electric jolt. Fortunately, he had brought a Leyden jar, a container with conductors on the inner and outer surfaces that become positively and negatively charged. When it is charged, the jar holds electricity. Franklin “collected electric fire very copiously,” as was recounted by a contemporary British scientist, Joseph Priestley. 
    The first constant electric light was demonstrated in Great Britain in 1835. For forty years, scientists and inventors from around the world made improvements to the incandescent light. Basically it works like this. A filament, a slender, threadlike fiber, is attached to the base of a glass bulb. The filament is heated by electricity passing through it. When the filament is hot enough, it glows. It emits light and heat. Only 5% is emitted as light. The other 95% is generated as heat. What a waste! But it was the best we had for a long time. Those early lightbulbs were expensive to produce. The filaments burned for a very short time. 
    Thomas Edison looked for an improvement. It is said he tested “no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material” (Franklin Institute) as he looked for a much longer-lasting bulb that was much less expensive to produce. When asked about his many, many tries to find a better material for his filament, he’s quoted saying, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” (Smithsonian Magazine )
    Edison made a carbonized filament of uncoated cotton thread that could last for 14.5 hours. But he and is team continued to experiment with filament fibers. He settled on one made from bamboo that gave his lamp a lifetime of up to 1,200 hours. He received a patent for his bulb that used carbon-coated bamboo filament on January 27, 1880. He continued to use the bamboo filament for 10 years. 
    In 1904, European scientists invented the tungsten filament. Tungsten is a metallic element with an extremely high melting point. Tungsten filament bulbs burned brighter and lasted longer than carbon filaments. Placing an inert gas like nitrogen in a lamp doubled its efficiency to 10%. The vast majority of energy was still being lost as heat. By the 1950s, researchers began to focus their own energy on finding a more efficient solution. 
    The march of progress included neon lights, florescent lights, and CFLs (compressed florescent lights). At first, CFLs were expensive and bulky. Now you can buy a four-pack for less than $2.00. They last about 10 times longer and use about 75 percent less energy than incandescents.
    Enter LED, a light emitting diode. They don’t get hot, which is proof of their efficiency. Their energy is converted to photons, not heat. They last up to 30 times longer than an incandescent bulb. They can be made with epoxy lenses instead of glass, so they’re much less likely to break. (The discussion of epoxy requires a blog post of its own!)
    And now new rules put LEDs in the forefront of energy conservation.
    Joe Biden’s Energy Department will require manufacturers to sell energy-efficient light bulbs. Incandescents will not be available after July 2023. Besides saving money on family utility bills ($100/year), businesses, schools, and factories will save billions of dollars. The Department’s rules are projected to cut planet-warming carbon emissions by over 7,000,000 metric tons per year.
    Even though merchants will be allowed to sell incandescent bulbs until July 2023, why in this wonderful world would anyone want one?
                       -—stay curious! (and look on the bright side)
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

         I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly