“Light” Facts
A bolt of lightning, which lasts less than one second, can discharge from 10 to 100 million volts and 30,000 amps of electricity.
Enough electricity is in one lightning bolt to service 200,000 homes.
Six times hotter than the sun, a bolt of lightning is about 54,000°F (30,000°C).
Although Benjamin Franklin didn’t discover electricity, he did prove lightning is a form of electrical energy.
If you had a switch in your house that would turn on a lamp placed on the moon, it would only take 1.28 seconds to light it up at a distance of 238,857 miles away.
A light-year (the distance light travels in one year), equals about 6 trillion miles.
Traveling at a speed of 186,282 miles/sec (299,792 Km/sec), it takes sunlight approximately 8 min and 20 sec to reach the Earth.
Pluto is so far away from the sun, it takes sunlight 4.5 hours to get there. (Compare to Earth’s time – above)
Sunlight is able to penetrate ocean water to a depth of 240 ft.
It is light, refracting through millions of droplets of water, which produces the rainbow.
Although Thomas Edison didn’t invent the first light bulb, he invented one that stayed on for more than a few seconds.
Edward Johnson, Thomas Edison’s lab assistant, strung a Christmas tree with hand-blown light bulbs in 1882.
In years gone by, Christmas trees were lighted with candles or colorful glass lanterns.
At one time, Christmas tree lights were so expensive they were rented rather than bought.
In the early 1900’s, an electrically lighted Christmas tree was a status symbol.
“Red Light”, in racing lingo, translates into a driver leaving the starting line before the green light (go) signal. This activates a red light on a Christmas tree and means the driver has automatically lost the race.
A searchlight beacon, announcing the 1932 election results of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the newly elected president, was the first light to shine from the top of the Empire State Building.
The Statue of Liberty (1886) was the first lighthouse to use electricity.
The Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to use electrical lighting.
It takes over 2,750 light fixtures to illuminate the Aquarium Of The Pacific building which is enough to light 140, two-bedroom homes.
Heavy dust on a light bulb can block half the emitted light.
Only 10% of the electricity is used when turning on an incandescent light while the other 90% is wasted as heat.
12 to 15 percent of the electricity used in a home is for lighting.
Compact fluorescent light bulbs, which can last up to 4 years, use 75% less energy than an incandescent bulb.
Only when a fluorescent light will not be turned on again for at least an hour is it energy-efficient to turn it off, because the high voltage needed to turn it on shortens it’s life.
Replacing four 100 watt incandescent light bulbs with four 25 watt compact fluorescent light bulbs can save you about $58.40 per year. Replacing these four bulbs pays for itself in about 8 months.
When turning on a light switch, 72% of the energy used comes from coal.
In one year in the US, recycled steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes while a 60-watt light bulb can run for more than a day on the amount of energy saved recycling 1 pound of steel.
We see the explosion of fireworks before hearing it because sound travels at 742 mph while light travels at 670,616,625.6 mph.
