Word: bulb
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...burned-out light bulb, as Inventor Thomas Edison knew, uses no electricity. Therefore, Tom Edison made it a rule for his power companies to replace burned-out bulbs without charge. It was an invisible cost on the light bill, but it kept the customer happy-and kept him buying Edison's power. Obvious as Edison's wisdom was, it was lost on many of his successors. Almost alone among big utilities, Detroit Edison Co. still gives away light bulbs. Partly because of this and similar consumer service policies, Detroit Edison, already the sixth biggest U.S. power company...
Fluorescent lights, when operating properly 1) are not "a general nuisance." On the contrary, they provide pleasant diffused light. 2) do not irritate the eyes: a fluorescent tube has a luminance of approximately 1 candle/cm 2, whereas a frosted bulb has a luminance of about 5 c/cm 2. To use a favorite American expression, doctors recommend that the eyes should not be subjected to a luminance of more than 2 c/cm. 2. 3) do not hum unless the ballast is defective. 4) do not flicker. But even if fluorescent lights had all those defects, I do not see how they...
...Force's School of Aviation Medicine, scientists were busy perfecting an accurate little gadget that will warn the high-altitude flyer when the oxygen in his bloodstream is dropping toward the danger point. Clamped on the translucent cartilage of a pilot's ear, a tiny light bulb emitting red and infra-red rays will shine through the ear lobe to illuminate a small photoelectric cell. As the oxygen saturation of the pilot's blood drops below its normal 98%, it will turn a darker, heavier red. Less light will filter through his ear lobe and less current...
...Henry," writes Magill, "is aroused in the morning by his alarm clock (price $6, plus $1.32 tax) . . . He walks across the floor of his $8,000 house (annual property tax $240) and switches on the electricity (3½? tax on each dollar of his monthly bill) which lights the bulb (price 20?, plus 2? tax)." Hardly a thing Henry touches is not taxed: cuff links (price $3.50, plus 77? tax), toaster (price $20.50, plus $1.74 tax), refrigerator (price $300, tax $25.52), cigarette (price per pack 10?, plus 7¢ federal tax, plus 4? state tax). Even Henry's wife...
...darkened room at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel this week, newsmen watched a large, opaque, glass ceiling-panel suddenly light up, flood the room with a mellow glow. There was no bulb or fluorescent tube behind the glass panel, yet its whole surface glowed evenly...