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Filament lamps have been a source of light for us for more than a century. They have been superceded technically by fluorescent lighting, electroluminescent lamps and by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in recent years, but millions of filament lamps are still made and used globally.

The humble filament lamp, or good old-fashioned 'light-bulb', is physically fragile and produces far more heat than light. It is unreliable; if it didn't have such a short life, there wouldn't be such a proliferation of 'light-bulb jokes'. So, it's cheap to buy, but the frequent replacement and massive losses through heat are contributions to our global waste and energy problems.

What are the alternatives? Fluorescent and electroluminescent systems are more efficient, but they still only last a while longer than filament lamps. There is also concern over poorly-designed invertor and starter circuitry, which pollute the electromagnetic spectrum. LED lighting shows much greater promise, with most of the power supplied to them being converted to light. LEDs have low voltage requirement, extreme reliability and small physical size. The cost of these devices continues to plummet as production volumes increase exponentially to match the demand.

I do remember one genuine use for a filament lamp. I discovered by experiment some twenty years ago, that if a steak-and-kidney pie were placed under a standard anglepoise lamp with the lamp's envelope just above the pie, the pie would be deliciously warm in twenty minutes.

Learn more about this author, Pete Morris.
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