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,LIGI{T and

MANOOO
A HISTORY CF HUMAN
ACHIEVEMENT

presents

There is nothing more abundant than light between sunrise and sunset. And there is nothing on which more effort has been concentrated through the years than light to melt darkness

from sunset to

sunrise,

Yet the nature of light has baffed man since the beginning of time. Even today there are two schools of thought concerning its composition. One group describes it as waves traveling through space. Another group describes lightasbundles of enetgy movingthroughspace. But light behaves as described by one theory under one circumstance, behaving predicted by the opposing theory under another.
as

The visible light portion of the spectrum includes the colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. (If you care ro memorize these in order, think of the name ROY G" BIV, which will give you the first letter of each color, in order.) This visible spec. trum disappears into the "black light" or ultraviolet area at one end of the radiant energy spectrum, and into infrared or heat rays) at the other. Our concern is that area between these points.
Prehistoric utilization of light in the form of fire probably carne about as the result of a natural calamity, such as a volcanic eruption, or a blaze started by lightning. It is also probable that fire was first used as a cooking means. Then it was used as a weapon to hold off marauding animals during the night.

lThaling became so important in East Hampton that the schoolmaster accepted part of his annual salary in the form of whale oil.

But when man moved into simple habitations, fire lengthened his day and became a true light source. Man accomplished tasks after dark, previously possible only in daylight, to increase his working period.
Soon wood with a high pitch content was used for torches. This permitted limited mobility around living sites after dark. As time went on, peoples in different parts of the world evolved varying types of lighting suited to their needs or dictated by raw materials
available.

As time went on, whale oil became increasingly popular for lighting. As a result, whales were intensively hunted from pole to pole. \7hale oil lampsbecame popular. Oil prices rose. Only the wealthy could afford whale oil candles and lamps. But with the discovery of oil in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, by Colonel Edwin L. Drake, whaling as a source for lighting oil was doomed.
Petroleum was less expensive than whale oil. It gave excellent light when refined to kerosene and burned in lamps. fn turn, as gas became available, oil lamps became less popular. Gas was piped to the consumer. ft required no bulk storage in the home. A device called a Wellsbach mantle placed on a gas outlet produced an incandescent effect. Streets, trains, theaters, churches, and restaurants were lighted by gas lamps. Meanwhile, in Menlo Park, N. J., a man with an

HISTORT OF DEYETOPMEI{T
wicks were used in bowls pounds of animal fat. Ancient capable of holding 50 Rome developed the candle, the wax torch (later known as the fambeau) and the horn lantetn.

In Babylon thick fax

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Shetland fslanders, until comp aratively recent times, captured and dried the stormy petrel, a bird with a high percentage of grease in its body, for lighting. The technique called for threading a wick through fhe petrel's beak, fixing its feet in clay, and burning the dried bird as a lamp. The now-extinct Great Auk was used as a light by the Danes, who inserted a wick in a dead bird's belly and burned it in their homes.
was settled, the colonists could not waste valuable shipping space for luxuries such as candles, so were first satisfied by pine knots, torches,

Sir Humphrcy Davy, an Englishman, developed the arc light in 1809. England's Sir Wifiam Robert Grave tried for years to make an elecric lamp. Finally another Englishman, Frederick DeMoleyns patented an electric lamp in 184i. His product, of platinum and charcoal, didn't work well. The platinum melted and the lamp went out.

lfhen America

or their cooking 6res for light. Later they made their own tallow or bayberry candles.

It

was about 1640 when Massachusetts Bay Col-

ony settlers began to seek whales in shallow waters just off-shore. By L650, some of these settlers had migrated to Long fshnd, where in East Hampton and Southampton, whaling expeditions of two and three weeks duration were made up and down the coast.

In Russia, Aleksandr N. Lodygin developed a graphite lamp in 1874. But after testing 200 of these short-lived light sources on a St. Petersburg dockyard, he found them too expensive to be practical. Paul Jablochkoff, another Russian scientist, used Sir Humphrey Davy's ideas to produce huge carbon-arc lamps for the illumination of the Paris Exposition in 1879. But the "Jablochkoff candles" were expensive and irnpractical, too.
And in Menlo Park, Thomas A. Edison, the nlan with the idea, was busily developing the first practical incandescent lamp. After thousands of tests, he for.rnf a bamboo fiber which, after charcing, lasted for hours Y

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and produced a reasonably good light. The age electric light was born on October 21, 1879.

of the

Electroluminescqnce demands little energy. A lamp three inches in diameter consumes about five cents worth of electricity annually, if burned continually.

Then, in order to demonstrate to the public that electric lighting was practical, Edison developed the first power company to provide current for lights installed in New York City in 1882.

Electric incandescent light spread through the country. The demand for light encouraged the formation of power companies and the availability of current encouraged greater use of electric light.

In future years firms now specializing almost wholly in the production of light sources will be manufactuting a wide variety of radiant energy products. Heat lamps for interior or exterior use, ultraviolet lights widely used in bug control and destruction of air-borne bacteria, for crime detection and the detection of spoilage in various foods, are now produced by the lighting industry for non-illuminating uses.
An important radiant energy application is the Gro-Lux@ lamp, a plant-growth enhancing lamp, which is often used in high school and collegiate science projects. It encourages swift, healthy plant development through the concentration of red and blue light waves. Plants maturing under proper conditions with Gro-Lux lamps have been found to have more extensive root systems, sturdier stems and stalks and higher health
Ievels.

From 1879 until 1938, the incandescent lamp was the single source of residential electric light. Then, with the popularization of the fuorescent tube by firms
such as Sylvania Electric Products Inc., and the development of the first practical fl.uorescent fixture by Sylvania, another type of lighting became possible.

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When the fl.uorescent lamp was introduced, purto have fixtures produced and wired locally since there were no fixtures commercially available. Because some of these fixtures were inefficient, of fl.uorescent lamps lagged.
chasers were forced

The Gro-Lux lamp is expected to be an important future aid in food growth where population levels have taken much arable land out of cultivation.

Sylvania then developed and produced a standard fixture, with ballasting, and for the first time made a complete lighting package available to commercial and industrial fuorescent lamp users. This assured the complete acceptance of the fluorescent lamp, and esablished another major business, the fl.uorescent fixture industry.

fn the future, the plant-growth lamp will be the


radiant er.ergy source for crops grown hydroponically in chemical solutions in loft'type buildings in the heart - cities. of the nation's largest

Today more light is produced by fuorescent by any other light source in the world, totaling about 100 billion kilowatt hours annually.
lamps than

This concentrated method of farming will provide as much food, grown without regard to weather, climate, soil conditions or insect plagues, as would farms containing thousands of acres wholly dependent upon natural growth cycles.

RECENT LIEHT'NE DEVELOPMEilTTS


One of the more exciting recent lighting industry developments is the electroluminescent lamp. Made practical by Sylvania, electroluminescence makes possible panels of fl.uorescent-type light of any size, for virtually any purpose. It has been used in automobile dashboards, in ceilings, walls and tabletops, and in hundreds of specialized applications such as electronic radio and TV sets' night lights and

This "tray agriculture" might be the answer to famine in Asian countries. It might some day free the United Kingdom from its dependence upon imports of fresh foods. It could be the answer to the dust bowls of the future. The laser, a high eraergy beam of light which car, caffy radio or television programs, or thousands of
telephone conversations at one time, is another example of lighting industry capability.

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Under careful medical control, the laser is believed capable of applications such as fusing a
detached retina to the human eye. It also is believed capable of being a defensive weapon against missiles.

A LUMEN is the amount of light cast upon one square foot of the inner surface of a hollow sphere of one foot radius with such a candle in its
center.

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Although the lighting industry is more than 75 years old, it is as modern as tomorrow. The incandescent lamp, the product on which the industry was founded, has been rejuvenated and as the iodine-quartzlamp is again a trail blazer in high intensity light sources.
Developments in the mercury vapor and pressure lamp fields are promising. More and more non-illuminating radiant energy products are coming out of the lighting laboratories. Products such as Gro-Lux lamps, lasers, and specialized ulttaviolet and infrared units are now being explored for highly specialized commercial and industrial applications.

A FOOTCANDLE is the amount of illumination when one lumen falls on one square foot
of surface.
is the brightness of a surface which emits or refects one lumen per square

A FOOTLAMBERT
surface.

foot of its
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\7ith this burgeoning of the radiant energy


field, more and more lighting engineers will be re' quired. As the lighting and radiant energy fields grow in years to come, it is anticipated that lighting specialists will be among the most widely-sought professional men in the engineering field.

incandescent lamp gives light when its filament glows as current is passed through it. Because all air is extracted from the lamp and replaced with an inert gas, the filament can be operated at higher temperatures without oxidation than if heated in the atmosphere. The gas pressure within the lamp envelope reduces the rate at which small bits of metal evaporate from its tungsten filament.
INERT GAS

An

TUNGSTEN FILAM EIIT

FILAMENT
LEADS

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Light is measured in candlepower, lumens, footcandles and footlamberts. Definition of these terms follow:

SUPPORT WIRE

QUANTITY fntensity of light Amount of light Level of illumination Brightness of a surface

UNIT
Candlepower

.. Lumen

... ... Footcandle


... .

Footlambert

CANDLEPO\X/ER expresses the intensity of a beam of light from an international candle in a particular direction.

Modern technology has developed incandescent lamps providing high lighting levels over relatively long periods of time. Manufacturers can produce longer-lasting lamps, but light output would be lower. ff more Lght is desired, it can be provided, but at the expense of lamp life. Modern incandescent lamp producers strike an economic balance between light intensity and lamp life.

HOW

A FLUORESCEIT,T LAMP

OPERATES
The fuorescent lamp is a long narrow or circular glass cylinder, coated on the interior with any of several rypes of phosphor. Air in the tube is replaced with mercury vapor and argon, an inert gas. At each end of the lamp is an electrode, made of an oxide.coated tungsten filament. I7hen heated by zn electric current, the filament releases a cloud of electrons around each electrode.

HOW AN ETECTROLUMINESCEilT LAMP OPERATES


A Panelescent@ electroluminescent lamp is actually a two-plate condenser, one plate of which is transparent and coated with a fuorescent phosphor. \When an alternating current is applied to the condenser, the phosphor is excited and emits visible light.

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MAXIMUM

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INSIDE OF GLASS TUBE COATED WITH FLUORESCEI{T PO1TDER FLUORESCENT POWDER GROUIID

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SPACE II{SIDE TUBE FILLO WITH ARGOII GAs AND MERCURY VAPOR

OTHER POPULAN, LIEHT SOURCES


THE MERCURY LAMP
Like the fl.uorescent lamp, the mercury lamp

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A high voltage electrical surge then establishes an electron arc between the electrodes with each alternation of the current. The electrons collide with mercury vapor and argon gas atoms filling
the tube to produce invisible ultraviolet rays.

is classified as an "electric discharge" device. In lamps of this type, the electric current passes through a gas or vapor under pressure instead of through a tungsten coil, as it does in the incandescent lamp.

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The rays excite the fuorescent phosphor coating the inside of the tube to become visible
light.

OPERATI}IG ELECTRODES

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Unlike incandescent lamps, fuorescent lamps cannot control their cuffent consumption. lJnless the current is controlled, the lamp burns itself out immediately. To avoid this, "ballasts," devices which limit current to the proper operating value, are wired into fuorescent circuitry.
ARC DISCHARGE

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Small fuorescent lamps require choke balIasts to limit current input to prevent burnout. Latge lamps require both a choke coil and a transformer. The transformer steps up the voltage and the coil limits the currenr.

STREAM

lfhen an alternating current is applied to the mercury lamp, it ionizes the gas. This starts the ions and electrons in the "arc dischatge" in motion

at tremendous speeds between the operating electrodes at opposite ends of the tube. The impact of the speeding electrons and ions on the surrounding gas and vapor atoms bdefly changes their atomic structure. Light is produced from the er.ergy yielded by the affected atoms as they revert to their normal structure. (As is true with f.uorescent lamps, mercury lamps require ballas* for their operation.) Mercury lamps are widely used in street lighting, industrial areas, loading platforms and other applications where high-intensity illumination is required. Phosphors are used in some mercury lamps to "correct" the light color since there are no red light waves in the mercury energy spectrum.

The lamp wall is made of tough qvaftz glass to withstand the high heat of the lamps. fts excellent ther-

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modern lighting.

put the incandescent principle into the forefront of

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HIGH SITICA GTASS

(quARTz) ErvEroPE

CERAMIC BASE

FITAMENT

AilD SUPPORT

TU}IGSTEtI FILAMENT II{ERT GAS AI{D IODIIIE ATMOSPHERE

THE IODINE.QUARTZ LAMP


The introduction of iodine molecules into an incandescent-type lamp during its manufacture has resulted in a lamp which provides intense illumination. In a conventional incandescent lamp, tungsten "boiled" oS the coil settles on the bulb's inner wall and reduces its efficiency. In the iodine-quartz lamp, the iodine intercepts the tungsten molecules before they reach the lamp wall. These elements combine chemically and return to the filament. There the high heat releases the iodine to repeat the process. This avoids loss of tungsten from the filament and its deposit on the lamp walls, insuring high brightness rhroughout lamp life.

Another feature of the iodine-quartz lamp is its high-brightness filament which, due to recenr advances in coil engineering, is packed into a shorter linear distance than was previously possible.

The iodine-qtrartz lamp is used in

Sylvania's

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motion-picture making. It also is used, in slightly different form, for high intensity outdoor flood and spotlighting, such as in the widely-known Sun Flood.

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BfuttttAs
SYIVANIA ETECTRIC PRODUCIS INC. O LIGHTING PRODUCTS DIVISION 60 Boston Street r Solem, Mossochusetts
coDE 53t2
4500 (l2.63)

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