Friday, July 31, 2009

On technolgical improvements in lighting

Two out of three light bulbs burned out in our new lamp, so off to the store we went. We wound up with two different bulbs: an LED ($9), and a compact fluorescent ($7). This lamp has 1 incandescent bulb, 1 CFL, and 1 LED; would anyone care to guess which is which?


Wikipedia's entry on LEDs has an enlightening explanation of the temperature of such white LEDs; the phosphor that converts the LED's blue light into white light doesn't do a very good job of it, and much of the blue leaks out -- this graph captures the effect nicely.

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