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 "Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be "in the limelight".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
