This lightbulb as been "on" since....1901!!

Danny Tse

That's right, a lightbulb at a Livermore, California firehouse has been burning since 1901. It's truly amazing....the events of the world that have happened during the time it's been on.

Check it out

And here're some facts about the bulb.

The bulb could've been made by one of the ladies in the photo....

zombie boy 2000

That's really, really cool....

Great pic too

RuSsMaN

Very cool.

aaharvel

wowzers!

madmax

The web cam is pretty exciting. NOT. Cool though!
madmax

Danny Tse

Hmmm....I was watching the "bulb cam" and just noticed they closed garage doors of the firehouse. I wonder if the vibrations of the doors opening and closing will "shorten" the life of the bulb.

I replaced one of the bulbs of my garage door opener with one of those "anti-vibration" bulbs and it burnt out in a week :mad:

dorokusai

If you saw the size of the filaments in vintage bulbs it's almost a no-brainer. It's certainly a neat factoid.

janmike

Neat.

venomclan

Thats cool, but I beleive that it is not the oldest bulb still burning. There is actually another bulb that was made by Thomas Edison himself that is still buring from the late 1800's. The bulb never went into production because of its longevity, it would kill the bulb industry.

The sad thing is that this has also been done in the automotive industry. There have been engines created that run on water, over 100 years ago. The oil companies paid the inventors 100K for the patent rights. Back then it was worth millions. Think about it today if we had that. No pollution, no global warming. no terrorism. Oil companies got to go.
Venom

bobman1235

venomclan wrote:

Thats cool, but I beleive that it is not the oldest bulb still burning. There is actually another bulb that was made by Thomas Edison himself that is still buring from the late 1800's. The bulb never went into production because of its longevity, it would kill the bulb industry.

The sad thing is that this has also been done in the automotive industry. There have been engines created that run on water, over 100 years ago. The oil companies paid the inventors 100K for the patent rights. Back then it was worth millions. Think about it today if we had that. No pollution, no global warming. no terrorism. Oil companies got to go.
Venom

HAHAHAHA, yeah, an engine that runs on water. Gocha. What is it, a WATERWHEEL? Find me the patent (all patents are public, adn available online through the patent office) and maybe I won't laugh at you anymore.

venomclan

There are 2 actually. One uses water as fuel, Kerosene is also used. The other uses water and some sort of mineral compound. There are engine designs that use gasoline as a vapor instead of a liquid. More power and much more efficient.

Laugh all you want. Do you actually think that 30mpg is the best man can do for the average sedan? We put a man on the moon almost 40 years ago.
Venom

bobman1235

venomclan wrote:

There are 2 actually. One uses water as fuel, Kerosene is also used. The other uses water and some sort of mineral compound. There are engine designs that use gasoline as a vapor instead of a liquid. More power and much more efficient.

Laugh all you want. Do you actually think that 30mpg is the best man can do for the average sedan? We put a man on the moon almost 40 years ago.
Venom

I think we can do much better than 30MPG, with MANY different things than gasoline, and I'm well aware that the oil lobbies keep back this technology. But ridiculous claims like you can run a car on WATER completely eclipse your point by making you sound ridiculous. Unless you mean BOILING water, like a STEAM engine, but that's using fuel to BOIL water, and tremendously inefficient.

Alternative fuels are fantastic, adn I'd love to hear more of them. But not unrealistic fantasies.

Drumingman

venomclan wrote:

We put a man on the moon almost 40 years ago.

Some say that was a Hoax too.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I guess they've never had a power outage in this firehouse?

steveinaz

Danny Tse wrote:

I replaced one of the bulbs of my garage door opener with one of those "anti-vibration" bulbs and it burnt out in a week :mad:

Use OVEN bulbs...

mrbigbluelight

Figure out the energy potential of a gallon of gasoline burned with perfect efficiency.

Than do the math for the energy required to move a pound of metal (with zero friction loss and perfect aerodynamics) at a functional speed of, oh, say 30 mph.
Assume perfectly level ground, with no losses from any stops.

100 mpg is possible if your driving a 200 lb, one person GO CART.

bobman1235

Some of the newer hybrids coming out next year are pushing 100MPG. Technically they're driven by battery-powered electric engines, but those engines are charged by the gasoline, so the energy is still COMING from the gasoline at some point.

schwarcw

Hybrids are going to be around for quite a while. A purely electric car is very inefficient when you consider the fuel combusted to make the electricity. Most fossil plants are around 33% efficient. Combine that with the efficeincy of the electric components in the car, and the overall efficiency is lower than a direct combustion engine. In the BIG picture, the overall efficiency must be considered.

Using nuclear power to generate the electricity for an electric car, or to produce hydrogen (water hydrolysis) makes the most sense from an environmental standpoint. Using fossil fuels (especially oil and natural gas) to make electricity is a tragic waste of these resources. Oil and gas are better suited to make the petrochemical product we need: textiles, plastics, and all sorts of chemicals for manufactuing.

One thing is for certain, fossil fuels will eventually be spent. Maybe not in your, or my lifetime. But it will happen. Until then, it will continue to get more expensive as there are more and more people especially in developing countries with red hot economies (China, India, etc.) and less and less fossil fuels.

MrNightly

Drumingman wrote:

Some say that was a Hoax too.

But what do you say???

F1nut

Shine on........

TroyD

...you crazy diamond.

petrym

I first saw this light bulb on the net about 4 years ago; the webcam is pretty cool. Shine on!!!

Danny Tse

The light bulb is still on....and apparently lasted longer than the webcam that was aimed at it. The light bulb is celebrating its 110th birthday this coming weekend with a parade. Here's the new webcam....

http://www.centennialbulb.org/cam.htm

BlueFox

venomclan wrote: »

Thats cool, but I beleive that it is not the oldest bulb still burning. There is actually another bulb that was made by Thomas Edison himself that is still buring from the late 1800's. The bulb never went into production because of its longevity, it would kill the bulb industry.

Any data to support that? Even a web-site run from your basement would be fine.

I just did a Google search on "longest light bulb" and your statement did not come up in the links I searched. It might be there, but I 'burnt out' looking.

billbillw

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

Figure out the energy potential of a gallon of gasoline burned with perfect efficiency.

Than do the math for the energy required to move a pound of metal (with zero friction loss and perfect aerodynamics) at a functional speed of, oh, say 30 mph.
Assume perfectly level ground, with no losses from any stops.

100 mpg is possible if your driving a 200 lb, one person GO CART.

Umm, If you assume no frictional loss and perfect aerodynamics (both are absurd assumptions though) then it takes NO energy to maintain 30mph on a flat level ground. It only takes energy to accelerate. Obviously, those assumptions can't be used for any real estimations.

100mpg is very achievable, even with a 4 passenger car.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/3374271

Note, that article is 5 years old now.

cnh

Over 100 years...remember 'they're' phasing out the incandescent bulb!

My wife drives a Prius and we use it exclusively for long trips, yet a 'really' efficient diesel can match or even beat its mileage at this point.

On the issue of oil lobbying away competing forms of energy...you bet they do! We could reboot our entire economy if we made some room for investment and small start-ups in various other forms of energy along with credits for better insulating and improving the efficiency of existing buildings, homes etc.

Nuclear, wind, gas, solar, geo-thermal--you name it. Where is the vision. An "Energy Race' that would rival the space race and create millions of good paying jobs very quickly!

Who is talking about that in any 'debates' anywhere. Hmmmmm.....I wonder. Even the Pres is a 'bought' man there!

How can we believe anything these guys say, Left or Right? When no one is doing anything!

In the meantime, oil fuel 'pre-buys' for this coming winter are hovering at 3.50 a gallon for us New Englanders....up 350 percent from a decade ago! Welcome to OIL heating!


cnh

Jer.War

I hate the whole capalism spin everything has. Everything is engineered to fail just to spin a profit. It is no wonder the landfills just keep piling up. Man's legacy to the planet will be fields of garbage....sigh...

bobman1235

You guys are so friggin' dramatic. You want to know why that bulb lasted 100 years, it's because it's just a giant filament in a glass case. It gives off basically ZERO light, adn probably takes a boatload of power.

Jer.War

Perhaps 60Watts of power (When new)......

cnh

We know that Bob. But it's a 'slow' Thursday up North.

cnh

bobman1235

Jer.War wrote: »

Perhaps 60Watts of power (When new)......

The actual wattage doesn't matter so much as lumens / watt.