An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light which produces light with a filament wire heated to a high temperature by an electric current passing through it, until it glows (see Incandescence). The hot filament is protected from oxidation with a glass bulb that is filled with inert gas (or evacuated). In a halogen lamp, filament evaporation is prevented by a chemical process that redeposits metal vapor onto the filament, extending its life. The light bulb is supplied with electrical current by feed-through terminals or wires embedded in the glass. Most bulbs are used in a socket which provides mechanical support and electrical connections.
Incandescent bulbs are manufactured in a wide range of sizes, light output, and voltage ratings, from 1.5 volts to about 300 volts. They require no external regulating equipment, have low manufacturing costs, and work equally well on either alternating current or direct current. As a result, the incandescent lamp is widely used in household and commercial lighting, for portable lighting such as table lamps, car headlamps, and flashlights, and for decorative and advertising lighting.
Incandescent bulbs are less efficient than several other modern types of light bulbs; most incandescent bulbs convert less than 5% of the energy they use into visible light (with the remaining energy being converted into heat). Some applications of the incandescent bulb deliberately use the heat generated by the filament. Such applications include incubators, brooding boxes for poultry, heat lights for reptile tanks, infrared heating for industrial heating and drying processes, and the Easy-Bake Oven toy. But waste heat can also significantly increase the energy required by a building's air conditioning system.
Because of their inefficiency, incandescent light bulbs are gradually being replaced in many applications by other types of electric lights, such as fluorescent lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), high-intensity discharge lamps, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Some jurisdictions, such as the European Union, are in the process of phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs by banning them with laws to force them being replaced with more energy-efficient lighting.
Read more about Incandescent Light Bulb: History of The Light Bulb, Tungsten Bulbs, Efficiency and Environmental Impact, Construction, Manufacturing, Filament, Electrical Characteristics, Light Output and Lifetime, Health Issues
Famous quotes containing the words incandescent, light and/or bulb:
“I waited alone, in the company of orchids, roses and violets who—like people waiting beside you, but to whom you are unknown—maintained a silence which their individuality of living things rendered more imposing and in their chilly manner received the heat from an incandescent coal fire, preciously placed behind a crystal glass, in a white marble tub where it dropped, from time to time, its dangerous rubies.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe’s strand
A living image of our own bright land,
Such as upon thy glorious canvas lies;”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“... until the shopkeeper plants his boot in our eyes,
and unties our bone and is finished with the case,
and turns to the next customer, forgetting our face
or how we knelt at the yellow bulb with sighs
like moth wings for a short while in a small place.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)