Re: Season misconceptions in newspaper

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@SBCGLOBAL.NET>]

If K is the name of the game for filament life, then the next lamp fill
should logically be radon - better thermal resistivity than Krypton
 by a factor of two or three. But wait - would the carcinogenic
leakage pose more health risk than the reduction in falling from
step ladders while changing lamps?

You will recall that H2 is a power station generator fill:
here I suspect the motivation is more the beneficial effect of
decreasing rho on whirling drag, than improved conductivity
alone.

Brian Whatcott    Altus OK

At 08:20 PM 6/23/2003 -0700, bc, you wrote:
> "Always wondered what virtue Krypton fill offers. Perhaps this is it!"
>
> When I was measuring the optical constants of REM (e.g. gadolinium) I
> used a bath of H2 as a thermal contacting fluid to ensure the prism was
> at the temp of the heat sink.  Conversely lamps use Kr for the opposite
> reason.  Somewhere I found the functional relationship of K (thermal
> conductivity) mass, gamma etc. -- never mind here's the K's at 100 deg C
> (I presume ~ one Bar)   WRT air:
>
> Xe  0.2
> Ar  0.7
> Ne  1.8
> H2  6.9!
> He  5.6
>
> and Kr:  0.12!!
>
> bc