If you want to impress your friends with a nifty, easy to conduct experiment, you’re going to need a normal incandescent bulb (‘a bulb’ as old people would say), a compact florescent bulb and a CD.
Hold the CD near the normal bulb and look at the colour spectrum – you can see the full rainbow, dancing across the surface. Then repeat over the CFL. What you see is a three distinct bands of colour – red, green and blue. It’s a nice party trick and spreads lots of FUD about the blasted things.
The next experiment is a bit trickier because it requires you to have a big enough room to do it in, and it needs to be painted the same colour all the way, light one half with a normal bulb and one half with a CFL, then just compare the way the walls look.
Really couldn’t be simpler.
Constantly Furious said...
2 Sep 09 at 2:26 pm
And a third experiment: take an odd-shaped, ugly and not particularly effective ‘green’ bulb and RAM IT UP THE BACKSIDE OF AN INTERFERING EU BUREAUCRAT.
Actually, that’s not an experiment, is it?
Be good to do though..
EuRat said...
2 Sep 09 at 5:28 pm
Who are you gonna belive – Me or your lying eyes?
Roger Thornhill said...
2 Sep 09 at 7:25 pm
Another experiment: take one Ed Milibland* and hold a bulb at one ear and look through the other, then repeat with a cfl. Now you will hardly see any difference than looking at them directly. the test proves nowt about cfls but slot about the vacuuity of Ed’s** bonce.
* no, please, just take him; anywhere but here.
** I swear that if Ed and David’s heads touched, they’d stick together like Velcro.
Rankersbo said...
4 Sep 09 at 2:59 pm
I compared a normal bulb to a CFL: there was no difference in either test. Should have gone out and bought an old-fashioned incandescent bulb to compare I suppose.
peter dublin said...
5 Sep 09 at 6:48 pm
Also try the brightness comparison test..
as in the daily telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html
More seriously, US lighting expert Howard Brandston had
an article about these matters
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574377171050647330.html
also
http://www.concerninglight.com/commentary.html
It remains true that light bulbs dont give out any CO2 gas RE “million tons emission savings”
yes surprising isn’t it?),
(what ?
that power stations could be dealt with direstly,
and that if that takes too long, then in the meantime a simple – temporary – tax on bulbs makes more sense
(this is not a normal ban, banning an unsafe product like lead paint – it’s a ban for consumption reasons only, so a tax is more logical)
Taxation is still unjustified in principle – it’s just less bad than ban, also for government ban proponents, who then get money for their renewable projects, home energy schemes, etc… lowering emissions more than any remaining bulb use was causing them…
peter dublin said...
5 Sep 09 at 6:51 pm
( more on different lights
properties and advantages
http://www.ceolas.net/#li5x onwards )
Mike said...
20 Dec 09 at 12:12 pm
Spreading FUD at a party??? What’s FUD? What happens if I get some of it on me?