Gallery of Lights
Lamps => News about Lamps => Topic started by: rjluna2 on January 15, 2012, 02:29:18 PM
-
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Parade, Sunday, January, 15th, 2012, page 7.
Ask Marilyn, by Marilyn vos Savant
My husband says that a light fixture with six 60-watt bulbs is as bright as a fixture with one 360-watt bulb. To me, this is like saying that if you harness together six horses, each of which can run 40 miles per hour, the team could run 240 miles per hour. I think my husband might be wrong for the first time in his life. Am I right? -– Elizabeth Moore, Bowling Green, Ky.
Your husband’s record remains unblemished –- almost. Watts are measure of energy consumption, not light output. To compare the latter, you must add up the lumens (a measure of light emission) that are produced by each bulb, and lower-wattage bulbs tend to be less efficient. I found an example in my closet -– a 40-watt bulb that produces 475 lumens and a 200-watt bulb that produces 3,300 lumens. So five of my 40-watt bulbs would produce 2,375 lumens, only about 72 percent of the output of the large bulb.