The Centennial Bulb

[Guest Sheree Dawn]

The Centennial Bulb Still burns after 107 years

Except for the ten minutes it took for the firefighters to move to their new location, this bulb has been burning non-freakin'-stop.

On the surface it may not seem like much, but my dramatic/creative/psychotic side kicked in with such thoughts as...

what if the bulb burns as long as life goes on?

what if, when the bulb goes out, the end-times begins to initiate with global disaster of apocalyptic proportions?

Many things can be inferred into this simple phenomenon, but it can also be used as a basis of some sort of Milleniumistic creation.

Edited May 17, 2008 by Sheree Dawn

[Guest SouthernCelt]

The Centennial Bulb Still burns after 107 years

Except for the ten minutes it took for the firefighters to move to their new location, this bulb has been burning non-freakin'-stop.

On the surface it may not seem like much, but my dramatic/creative/psychotic side kicked in with such thoughts as...

what if the bulb burns as long as life goes on?

what if, when the bulb goes out, the end-times begins to initiate with global disaster of apocalyptic proportions?

Many things can be inferred into this simple phenomenon, but it can also be used as a basis of some sort of Milleniumistic creation.

The light bulb equivalent of the grandfather clock from the song, huh?

"And the clock stopped...never to go again

When the old man died."

Although such things that defy the norm, or what we consider the norm, can be combined with an active imagination and all sorts of "possible" explanations found for the significance of defying the norm...but more than likely it still works because of several factors:

>>The filament isn't the usual tungsten alloy, it's carbon which can be made to glow in a vacuum w/o oxidizing; therefore, the carbon never changes or depletes.

>>The vacuum seal probably is a near perfect one and if the bulb was filled with nitrogen before the vacuum was drawn on the bulb and the seal created, any gas in the bulb does not contribute to oxidation.

>>The carbon, while fragile and will break rather easily, is not subject to any shock or sudden movement when hanging from a cord at a somewhat extreme height. And it sounds like they took care with moving it so as to not break it while it was off.

>>Most incandescent bulbs, regardless of filament type, have short lives because of heating and cooling stresses from being turned on and off frequently. Each on/off cycle induces the creation of microscopic fissures in the filament. After a period of time the fissures widen or worsen until the filament breaks, usually when a switch is flipped to power it on. The flash of light just as a bulb "burns out" is a miniature form of lightning due to the arcing of electricity across a fissure that has separated across the entire filament diameter. This sudden arc also serve to actually further break the filament apart due to overheating and vaporizing the ends of the filament at the break.

>>This bulb was made in an era when much of the country still was not "electrified" so the market for bulbs was small and each one could be made with a lot more care.

Since bulbs can be made to have much longer life that they currently do by enhancing the vacuum, using thicker &/or different filament materials and other such improvements, the main reason manufacturers don't make every bulb that way is cost and the ultimate retail cost to the consumer. On a cost per hours of expected life, the shorter-life bulbs are cheaper.

[Guest Sheree Dawn]

The light bulb equivalent of the grandfather clock from the song, huh?

"And the clock stopped...never to go again

When the old man died."

me wipes tears of remembrance from my eyes. In the 5th grade our teacher believed in an hour of song every single day; it annoyed the other classes because it was an old building and our voices echoed down the halls EVERY FREAKIN' MORNIN'. But that was one of our songs, AND one of my favorites. It always brought a tear to my eyes. My classmates laughed at me.

I was overly sensitive even then.

Although such things that defy the norm, or what we consider the norm, can be combined with an active imagination and all sorts of "possible" explanations found for the significance of defying the norm...but more than likely it still works because of several factors:

>>The filament isn't the usual tungsten alloy, it's carbon which can be made to glow in a vacuum w/o oxidizing; therefore, the carbon never changes or depletes.

>>The vacuum seal probably is a near perfect one and if the bulb was filled with nitrogen before the vacuum was drawn on the bulb and the seal created, any gas in the bulb does not contribute to oxidation.

>>The carbon, while fragile and will break rather easily, is not subject to any shock or sudden movement when hanging from a cord at a somewhat extreme height. And it sounds like they took care with moving it so as to not break it while it was off.

>>Most incandescent bulbs, regardless of filament type, have short lives because of heating and cooling stresses from being turned on and off frequently. Each on/off cycle induces the creation of microscopic fissures in the filament. After a period of time the fissures widen or worsen until the filament breaks, usually when a switch is flipped to power it on. The flash of light just as a bulb "burns out" is a miniature form of lightning due to the arcing of electricity across a fissure that has separated across the entire filament diameter. This sudden arc also serve to actually further break the filament apart due to overheating and vaporizing the ends of the filament at the break.

>>This bulb was made in an era when much of the country still was not "electrified" so the market for bulbs was small and each one could be made with a lot more care.

Since bulbs can be made to have much longer life that they currently do by enhancing the vacuum, using thicker &/or different filament materials and other such improvements, the main reason manufacturers don't make every bulb that way is cost and the ultimate retail cost to the consumer. On a cost per hours of expected life, the shorter-life bulbs are cheaper.

I can sum it up on one scientifically logical statement: THEY DON'T MAKE 'EM LIKE THEY USED TO.

Logically speaking, I think between the near perfect vacuum and the fact it was never turned off, it's had no stress to destroy the filament. I used to turn my computer off ever time I left the room until someone told me it was harder on the pc to restart than to just leave it running.

[Guest SouthernCelt]

Logically speaking, I think between the near perfect vacuum and the fact it was never turned off, it's had no stress to destroy the filament. I used to turn my computer off ever time I left the room until someone told me it was harder on the pc to restart than to just leave it running.

A word of caution...if you leave your pc on and have any kind of always-online internet service, you're vulnerable to a hacker getting to your operating system when you're not actively doing anything. Leave the pc on but physically disconnect your internet.