Re: [Vo]:In the Limelight
On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Funny, how time flies (When you're having Fun) Time's fun when you're havin' flies. Kermit
[Vo]:In the Limelight
Lights, camera, action. In the 'nothing new under the sun' department: You have probably heard the word limelight before, but may not be aware of the actual method of operation of the stage-lighting device, going back nearly 200 years before grid electricity became available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limelight Limelight is a type of stage lighting once used in theaters and music halls. An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of calcium oxide ... which can be raised to white heat without melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be in the limelight. END of WIki quote Some interesting historical things about this device- looking back from the modern context- are first that hydrogen was once readily available (extracted from town gas for instance or other ways) whereas electricity was not. And secondly that: given the theater could have used straight town-gas for lighting - but instead, they went to what seems like extreme limits. Was this a cost cutting step to maximize the lighting effect and intensity per unit of gas, or simply to get the white-greenish 'lime' color, or both? Since theaters immediately switched over to electric arc lighting (which is glaringly white) as soon as that became available ... which was both a cost cutting measure as well as for fire-safety - then it is fair to suggest that cost must have been a major issue in the original use of calcium oxide all along, as opposed to the artistic quality of light. Impresarios are noted for caring both for profit as well as art ;-) How could a cylinder of calcium oxide placed in the oxyhydrogen flame have been an actual way to greatly increase the net photonic output in the visible range, per unit of town gas? That does not sound too probable at first, but it is a close call since incandescence and candoluminescence while not gainful, do benefit from being able to employ a much higher temperature than town gas can deliver, but hydrogen can. OTOH - Calcium oxide has been mentioned many times in connection with LENR, most recently by Horace Heffner and Michel Jullian in regards to several schemes for cold fusion. Plus - Calcium and oxygen ions are BOTH hydrino catalysts, mentioned in the original CQM (as opposed to the recent shoe-horning of anything and everything). Don't forget Louis Kervan. IOW-there are modern suggestions that point to more than incandescence. Could the original limelight have been an actual energy anomaly to some degree ? ... there is ZERO suggestion of that now, nor it was ever said to be efficient AFAIK except by looking at what it replaced (this is mainly because there was so little to compare it with at the time)... ...but nevertheless, it is tantlaizing to suggest that the original Limelight M.O. may have benefited to a small degree, from supra-chemical reactions which are only now, 182 years later- beginning to be understood. Which might some day make a nice chain of events for a future episode of BBC Connections. (Last episode 1997 now 21 years old, but LENR could be the impetus for a new run, James ;-) Jones
Re: [Vo]:In the Limelight
Which might some day make a nice chain of events for a future episode of BBC Connections. (Last episode 1997 now 21 years old correction FWIW ... actually the fist episode was 1978 making it over 30 years old. Funny, how time flies (When you're having Fun) Jones Funny, time flies even when you're having none ;-)
Re: [Vo]:In the Limelight
Howdy Jones, Interesting to us is the calcium buildup on our units returned for repairs. Only in certain areas of the US does this buildup occur. even stranger is the locations are often near oceans where chlorine gas is inducted and mixed.. hmm Richard
Re: [Vo]:In the Limelight
Since I'm likely the only Vort who has actually made a limelight, allow me to make a few observations. First, limelight isn't lime colored or even slightly greenish, a common misconception on account of the name I guess. It has a very aggreable color compared to the blue-white of the carbon arc, however. It doesn't take much imagination to think that commercial suppliers might have added a few secret ingredients to their lime cylinders to give their light a more pleasing color. Looking at the limelight with a spectroscope, even a simple one, reveals what must be the major source of the emitted light besides incandescence. Candoluminescence is ill-defined and seems to be mostly an archaic word for fluorescence. But easily seen in a spectroscope are the characteristic bright narrow band spectra of ionized calcium overlayed on the continuous incandescent spectrum. Town gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, would probably not work as the CO would tend temporarily to form calcium carbonate thereby poisoning the cycle I think occurs in the limelight. My guess is that under the relatively high temperature of the oxy-hydrogen torch the calcium is ionized after having been reduced to elemental calcium by the hydrogen. The combustion finally re-oxides the calcium and returns it to the lime surface. I did this a very long time ago in my father's instrument repair shop where he had welding equipment including both oxy-acetylene and oxy-hydrogen torches. You can direct the torch at a pile of lime of the type available at hardware stores, but it's hard to do this without melting whatever you put the lime on. I imagine the cylinders of lime were made for the purpose by compression. My cylinder was a piece of chalk which starts out as calcium carbonate, but quickly becomes calcium oxide under the intense heat. In this form it's easily broken apart, but it holds it's shape well enough for this purpose. Although it is plenty hot enough, the oxy-acetylene torch doesn't work nearly as well as the hydrogen torch. With a welder's mask you can see that there is actually a darker area where the acetylene torch flame first touches the lime. With the hydrogen torch there is a brighter spot where the torch flame contacts the lime, and the overall brilliance is much greater. How this might relate to possible O/U or supra-chemical reactions I have no idea, but you might find it interesting. M. --- On Sat, 6/7/08, Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Vo]:In the Limelight To: vortex vortex-l@eskimo.com Date: Saturday, June 7, 2008, 8:32 AM Lights, camera, action. In the 'nothing new under the sun' department: You have probably heard the word limelight before, but may not be aware of the actual method of operation of the stage-lighting device, going back nearly 200 years before grid electricity became available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limelight Limelight is a type of stage lighting once used in theaters and music halls. An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of calcium oxide ... which can be raised to white heat without melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be in the limelight. END of WIki quote Some interesting historical things about this device- looking back from the modern context- are first that hydrogen was once readily available (extracted from town gas for instance or other ways) whereas electricity was not. And secondly that: given the theater could have used straight town-gas for lighting - but instead, they went to what seems like extreme limits. Was this a cost cutting step to maximize the lighting effect and intensity per unit of gas, or simply to get the white-greenish 'lime' color, or both? Since theaters immediately switched over to electric arc lighting (which is glaringly white) as soon as that became available ... which was both a cost cutting measure as well as for fire-safety - then it is fair to suggest that cost must have been a major issue in the original use of calcium oxide all along, as opposed to the artistic quality of light. Impresarios are noted for caring both for profit as well as art ;-) How could a cylinder of calcium oxide placed in the oxyhydrogen flame have been an actual way to greatly increase the net photonic output in the visible range, per unit of town gas? That does not sound too probable at first, but it is a close call since incandescence and candoluminescence while not gainful, do benefit from being able to employ a much higher temperature than town gas can deliver, but hydrogen can. OTOH - Calcium oxide has been mentioned many times in connection with LENR, most recently
Re: [Vo]:In the Limelight
--- Michael Robin, This is the page that mentions the way that the characteristic greenish color of the light was obtained, with some other interesting stuff. http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/delights/texts/Demonstration_19.htm Apparently the greenish color occurs when the oxygen is cut-off or starved, which was apparently a likely occurrence back then, either planned or unplanned. Hydrogen was easily extracted from town gas but oxygen would have been comparatively expensive, one supposes. Apart from thermoluminescence calcium oxide exhibits also so-called flame luminescence. When the oxygen of an oxy-hydrogen blast lamp used in the production of the limelight is turned off and the hydrogen flame is allowed to play over the surface of the slowly cooling lime cylinder, a greenish glow may sometimes be seen in the regions reached by the flame. As to possible hydrinos- maybe they could be involved directly in the green color. The ecologists would love that. The alternating and sequential redox is interesting in the context of possible hydrino formation - quote: Luminescence is produced by actual contact of certain zones of a hydrogen flame with the material to be excited. Rapid oxidation and reduction appear to be essential. Could not luminescence to some extent equate to UV (13.6 eV etc) being downshifted? Jones
Re: [Vo]:In the Limelight
Jones wrote: This is the page that mentions the way that the characteristic greenish color of the light was obtained, with some other interesting stuff. http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/delights/texts/Demonstration_19.htm Apparently the greenish color occurs when the oxygen is cut-off or starved, which was apparently a likely occurrence back then, either planned or unplanned. Hydrogen was easily extracted from town gas but oxygen would have been comparatively expensive, one supposes. Apart from thermoluminescence calcium oxide exhibits also so-called flame luminescence. When the oxygen of an oxy-hydrogen blast lamp used in the production of the limelight is turned off and the hydrogen flame is allowed to play over the surface of the slowly cooling lime cylinder, a greenish glow may sometimes be seen in the regions reached by the flame. I have to admit I never tried starving the flame of oxygen, apparently the only time the greenish glows appears. The fully oxygenated hydrogen flame on the lime gives a really beautiful pure white light, much nicer than the carbon arc. I've never found a historical reference to the characteristics of the limelight spectrum, which is rather odd. The article also mentions what I observed, which is that it must be a hydrogen flame for the effect to occur. It makes me wonder what would happen if the lime were exposed to the flame of a Langmuir torch. Would the lime be reduced to metallic calcium and the lime cylinder melt away like a candle? M.
