Engineering News

And in fact most (well, many) US homes do today have exactly these sorts of lights, if in no other location than above the kitchen sink.

They're describing the common fluorescent bulb.

Depending on how you define it, such lamps existed some 80 years before this Popular Science article. But to be fair phosphor wasn't added until much, much later. And the first commercial ones weren't sold until soon after the article.

Although it really took a long time for manufacturers and users to worry much about tailoring the bulbs to produce light that would improve mood. For decades we lived with the dreaded "cold" blue-white light (usually flickering) streaming down on us in the workplace, crushing our spirits.

Say good bye to fluorescent lamps of any and all stripes. The environmentalists have their knickers in a twist and their briefs in a wad over the hazardous mercury in all of them.

Now you can buy LED lamp bulb replacement with comparable energy/light ratios as the compact spiral fluorescents. Ah but there is one small matter of the cost of these new items.

The pop mech & sci rags have been making wags regarding the future of this that and the other for as long as I have been reading them. Their success rate is pretty low. I guess they have the right to brag a bit about what ever successes come to reality.

Yes, I agree with Stirling Stan in the rapid demise of all types of fluorescent lamps, compact and otherwise, because of the toxic Mercury and the dangerous phosphors which, to date, nobody has worked out how to recycle.

LED lamps, probably Organic LED Lamps, are the way of the future.

Lamp makers in general, are loath to invest in the LED technology, because the LED lamps will last some 100,000+ hours, are cheap to make, but once installed in a home, there will not be many repeat purchases.

Kind Regards....

Don't worry, I am sure that they (the manufactures) will design some flaw into their construction so they will fail at a somewhat regular rate.

Absolutely, no need to worry. To get the brightness the people want, the LED's are run 'hot' and won't last all that long anyways. We're still a number of years away from LED's for general purpose lighting. I've never liked the 'spotty' coverage. You just don't seem to get nice even lighting with them. I'm sure the manufacturers are working on this, but it will take time.