The Nernst Lamp

https://edisontechcenter.org/NernstLamps.html

by rolph • 5 years ago

46 9 5 years ago

edisontechcenter.org

anfractuosity• 5 years ago

Photonicinduction had a recent demo of one of these lamps too - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-spTvp5-sf0

userbinator3• 5 years ago

That was an amazing video. Given the videos he was known for before, I am extremely relieved that he didn't destroy it.

...and now I'm imagining someone making a video a century from now of repairing a CCFL and showing it working.

dylan604• 5 years ago

I'd be perfectly fine if history forgets about CFLs. Incadescent directly into LEDs

userbinator3• 5 years ago

I remember reading about these in old books on electricity at archive.org. There were many different attempts at electric lighting back then; it must've been an exciting time to live in the late 1890s-1900s.

cbmuser• 5 years ago

Any reading suggestions for books on electricity from archive.org?

Are there any particularly old books that are interesting?

userbinator3• 5 years ago

There's a lot of stuff on there: https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Electric+l...

Here's a 19th century one:

https://archive.org/details/practicaltreatis00gord

This one is all about Nernst lamps:

https://archive.org/details/DevelopmentOfTheNernstLampInAmer...

fuzzfactor• 5 years ago

Also known for the Nernst Equation which codifies some fundamental electrochemical properties, plus the Third Law of Thermodynamics, which are both more popular than ever. Among other things.

Even though it's now been 101 years since he earned the 1920 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his thermodynamic advances.

Nernst's laboratory discovered that at low temperatures specific heats fell markedly and would probably disappear at absolute zero. This fall was predicted for liquids and solids in a 1909 paper of Albert Einstein's on the quantum mechanics of specific heats at cryogenic temperatures. Nernst was so impressed that he traveled all the way to Zurich to visit Einstein, who was relatively unknown in Zurich in 1909, so people said: "Einstein must be a clever fellow if the great Nernst comes all the way from Berlin to Zurich to talk to him."[12]
Nernst and Planck lobbied to establish a special professorship in Berlin and Nernst donated to its endowment. In 1913 they traveled to Switzerland to persuade Einstein to accept it; a dream job: a named professorship at the top university in Germany, without teaching duties, leaving him free for research.[13]

hdersch• 5 years ago

Nernst sold the patent in 1902 for 1 Million Mark to AEG, which corresponds to roughly 10 Million EUR today. It was one of the highest valued patents at the time, and is still quite impressive today.

The Nernst Lamp

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