Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBungle
I read about the concept of a light bulb in Gravity’s Rainbow in the 1990s. Thought it was common knowledge these days that it was a conspiracy rather than an engineering impossibility.
Interestingly my father had a lightbulb in the garage that lasted 45 years. Was impressed.
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Forgot to mention in my last post, the relation between voltage applied and filament life has a power of 13 in it. So it's relatively easy to make a light bulb last long by operating it outside normal parameters. Even a simple NTC resistor in series will prolong life. Likewise, some manufacturers would have aimed for a 2000h life in stead of the agreed upon 1000h (especially eastern european ones may have done that). Also, the bulb could have been a 250V one or a reinforced construction lamp (as seen in traffic lights, hard to reach lights, workshops). As some others already mentioned, it really isn't that hard to make a incadescent light bulb last longer. The cartel was really about choosing the parameters for optimal production and optimal financial gain. Within a technically feasible range of a few hundred to a few thousand operating hours, the optimum was found at 1000 hours. Everything from the top of my head, I didn't watch said documentary recently.