World's Oldest Continuously Burning Light Bulb
Date: Tuesday, June 08 @ 17:15:50 EDT
Topic: Education
Hate changing light bulbs? If you do you'll enjoy reading this.
Every once in a while the forces of nature combine to create something that is so rare that mere humans are held in awe. The perfect storm, planetary alignments and solar eclipses come to mind but this story has a man-made origin.
Hanging on an electrical cord over the fire engines at the Livermore - Pleasanton Fire Department's Station Number Six is a light bulb. But it's not just any light bulb. This light bulb has been burning since 1901! It is considered the longest-burning bulb in the world.
The Livermore Centennial Light was manufactured in 1901 by the Shelby Electric Company. It is a hand-blown bulb with a carbon filament. It uses approximately 4 watts of electricity. The bulb has been left burning continuously in the firehouse as a night light over the fire trucks since 1901.
Regular incandescent light bulbs last about 750 to 2,000 hours, if they were left continuous burning. Fluorescent lights can last 20,000 hours. As of June 8, 2002, its 101st Birthday, this bulb has reportedly been burning more than 800,000 hours!! It's even made the Guiness Book of Records.
There's a website that's devoted to the Centennial Lightbulb at www.centennialbulb.org. There, you can see a "live" picture of the light bulb 24-hours a day.
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