A NEW ELECTRIC LIGHT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 65, 22 July 1913, Page 6

A NEW ELECTRIC LIGHT.

» INCBEASED ILLUMINATION

The extraordinary strides that have been made recently in applying electricity to other than lighting purposes have obscured for the time being the possibilities of further improvement

in the metallic filament lamp itself. | Where the electrical industry will finally find itself one dare not prophesy, I but it is certain that further great economies are yet ahead. This gratifying fact should encourage many who are still undecided upon the relative positions, from an economical point of view, of electricity and other sources of illumination.

That finality has not been reached was demonstrated in a striking manner in London last month, when Prof. jC. F. ,Dussaud, a French scientist jam! inventor, introduced his discovery {of ‘'cold light” —an electric light em- | anating from a metallic filament lamp without any perceptible heat. The light has not only this peculiar ,physical characteristic, but is capable of being produced with great intensity | upon a current consumption that is but a fraction of that now common in every-day practice. A saving of approximately 93 per cent, is estimated as the result of recent experiments. The phenomenon is the outcome of the application to lighting of the universal principle of “rest.” By applying to a metallic filament lamp a current of higher intensity than that for which it was built, a vastly increased illumination is produced, tinder ordinary conditions, however, the 1 i 4 7 (Surcharge would merely result in the jburning out of the filament. Prof. jDussaud, however, overcomes this difficulty by giving the filament periodic ! rests, and so arranges the rests that ithey are twice as long as the period during which the current is operating. Although the lamp is extinguished {during these periods of rest the eye •experiences no sense of darkness. Under ordinary conditions the current is broken off and restarted about 40 or 50 times per minute, and the interval is so short that the eye does not perceive it. All that is visible to thg eye is a light so brilliant in comparison to that produced by the same lamp under ordinary conditions that it if difficult to believe that there is a re duced and not a largely increased current consumption. The application of cold light to do mestic purposes is only a matter o' time. At present the idea is in the cxpindmeritaUstage, and with competition so. ikoeni any attempt to exploit the principle; commercially, before iff application has been reduced to the simplest: possible form, might -prove the enterprise. At present experiment favors the use of clusters ■ of three lamps revolving in such a manner that each lamp is lighted and extinguished in a fixed position. It is contended that whereas one lamp burned under intermittent surcharge might have a life of 100 hours, three- burned intermittently,.., « give jibe illumination would each have a life of 900 hours. These figures are given purely for illustration* purposes,.,and bear no relation to the actual life; of a lamp under the new conditions.

The greatest;point about Prof. Dussand’s invention, from the domestic side, is that it demonstrates very clearly that however economical electric light may he to-day, there .arc definite indications of it becoming: more so as research progresses