Talk:List of light sources

Sections messed up?
Something is wrong with the sections. Everything is under the main heading of "Incandescence", which isn't right. I'd like to fix this, but I'm not sure I'd get all the categories and sub-categories correct. Anyone care to help? --Dreadpirate Roberts (talk) 01:07, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Cherenkov/Čerenkov
"Cherenkov radiation" is listed under "Nuclear and high-energy particle", while "Čerenkov radiation" is listed under "Celestial and atmospheric". It is not good to use two alternative spellings in the same article and it would be preferable if phenomena were not repeated under different categories.

Moonlight is not a source
Moonlight?? Moonlight is not a source, it's a reflection of the sun. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.37.84.4 (talk • contribs).
 * Yes, that is why it is indented, under sunlight, instead of appearing as a separate source of light. Moonlight is a type of sunlight.--Srleffler 16:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

By that same rationale, the ground is a type of sunlight. Yes, you can read by moonlight, but that doesn't make the moon a light source. A source by definition generates its own light. The moon, planets, comets, etc... should all be removed from this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.18.181.175 (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Light bulb image

 * this may seem stupid, but should the light bulb image have a caption under it; in case someone didn't know what it was? Think outside the box 11:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * i've added a caption to see how it looks - if you dont like it remove it. thanks Think outside the box 11:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The image shows a common light bulb that would either shine very weakly or burn out quickly if used in some other country (different supply voltage) than the one where it was sold, and it could not even be screwed into the bulb sockets that are standard in the UK. So I changed the caption. Cuddlyable3 09:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Practical lighting
We need an article that compares "fair and balanced" the major current sources of practical residential/commercial electricity-based lighting: incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, and LED. This article is too inclusive, and as it stands these issues are getting fought over in each article about the various kinds of lighting, which is a problem. It could be called something like "Lighting efficiency" or "Electric Lighting" or "Green Lighting"?-69.87.204.232 12:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The above proposal seems to be about exclusively electric room lighting. Start by naming objective criteria for the comparison. Cuddlyable3 09:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Some criteria for comparing practical (current?) electric room lighting:
 * Energy efficiency (lumens/watt), over what range of sizes
 * Typical additional energy loses from required system circuitry (ballasts) and light loss in typical fixtures (luminaires)
 * Color issues
 * Directionality
 * Flicker
 * Dimmability
 * Sensitivity to heat (use in enclosed fixtures)
 * Lamp/bulb cost, life, performance decreases over life
 * Re-lamping issues
 * Loss of rated service life due to frequent on/off
 * Point source or area source
 * Hazardous materials use, dangers to users/works, disposal issues
 * Power factor - impact on the electric supply grid

The goal is to try to include most of what people fight about, in a neutral-summaryevaluation-factual way. -69.87.204.146 16:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. How about 'Domestic lighting' Tabby (talk) 01:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Is there an article which lists the common types of light bulbs used in domestic or even business applications? For example, say someone wants to know what a "G20" globe bulb is, or what a "PAR 40" bulb is?  This is yet another area which could be tackled in an article listing lights/lamps.  --Slordak (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Spectra
We need good, complete, full-frequency power spectrum plots for each common light source. Real, true data, calibrated, plotted on equal-power-area scale. It is incredibly hard to find real data. The only ones I have found are the good illustrations in the Solar radiation article. I haven't been able to find any for incandescent light -- the IR seems to always be missing. (When such obviously flawed data is so rampant, makes you wonder about the subtle errors multiplying as truth.) For our purposes, it would be ideal to have both the pure radiometric power plots, and then multiplied by the Luminosity function, and colored in, so that the detailed photometric result for each source would be vividly shown.-69.87.203.17 21:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure it's appropriate for a list-page. Some sources are so general, such as Stars and bodies of water, that data would vary so much for each source. Of course, the individual pages would probably benefit from the data and perhaps a comment relating it to other sources. Philipwhiuk (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

CCFL
Can we place the CCFL in this article ??

Stef

Sonoluminescence
What about sonoluminescence, the light generated by imploding bubbles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence --129.244.143.117 19:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Bodies of Water?
Bodies of Water are not sources of light at least tab them under the Sun --Phy1729 (talk) 00:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Olympic Flame
It occurs to me that the Olympic Flame should be on here, but I'm not sure where. The source of fuel has varied over the years.. Anyway, I'm sure a more frequent contributor could suggest a reasonable location Philipwhiuk (talk) 11:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC) (Signed correctly now)

Should "Teddy Bear on Fire" also be added? The flame is merely an application of fire, it doesn't need a special listing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.18.181.175 (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Silly
I'm sorry, I don't think this page needs to list everything that can catch fire. It is enough to list "fire" (or better yet, combustion) and leave out "vehicle fire" and "structural fire" and everything else. BLEVE?! Come on. I'm going to remove all those. Similarly, I'll be removing moonlight and planetlight etc. for the reasons discussed in the very first bullet of this talk page. -Tim 162.18.172.11 (talk) 21:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC) After I wrote that I noticed that rainbows etc. are on here. Again, these are optical phenomena but not light sources. They will be removed. -Tim 162.18.172.11 (talk) 21:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The category on combustion needs to go beyond just "fire" for combustion. I don't think its right to remove candles from a list of light sources. Fotaun (talk) 15:11, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Placement of Incandescence
If I don't get any objections to this idea I am going to move the link to make incandescence its own subsection under Terrestrial light. It is inaccurate to only mention the phenomena under electrically powered light because the term refers to all light generated by heat. Furthermore, I am going to place the volcanic stuff under the Incandescence heading because that is why molten rock is a source of light in the first place. I can cite this article if its really necessary to defend that lava is incandescent. Just let me know if I should. http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/flow_features.html GLawler (talk) 01:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Those all sound like good edits to me. -Tim 162.18.172.11 (talk) 17:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Light sources
lamp torch mirror — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.228.83 (talk) 16:05, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

"Nearly nothing emits photons through blackbody radiation"
I get what you were trying to say, that dark matter is believed to be a greater portion of mass in the universe than anything else, and that it's called "dark" for a reason. But I think for the purposes of this article that's very misleading. I don't really think this list should be a physics lesson. 162.18.172.11 (talk) 15:42, 28 June 2013 (UTC)Tim

Phosphorescence & Bioluminescence
Isn't all bioluminescence a type of phosphorescence? Shouldn't bioluminescence be filed under/as a category of phosphorescence?
 * (Psychonaut25 - 13355p34k / C0n7r1b5 09:29 PM EST, 19 July 2013 (UTC))

I'm not 100% clear on the mechanisms, but I don't think that's necessarily true. I believe they are distinct processes. 162.18.172.11 (talk) 20:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC) Tim


 * Well let me put it this way; I can think of a bunch of examples of phosphorescent organisms (fireflies, Panellus stipticus, among others), but I can think of no examples of a bioluminescent organism whose luminescence is not due to phosphorescence. Can anybody else think of any examples?
 * (Psychonaut25 - 13355p34k / C0n7r1b5 12:09 AM EST, 28 July 2013 (UTC))

According to the Firefly Luciferin wiki, luciferin is fluorescent. Fluorescence is a distinct process from phosphorescence. 162.18.172.11 (talk) 20:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)Tim

Vandalism?
Someone has tried to repeatedly supply a weird, wandering question-and-answer introduction to this page since May 2015. There's been a number of vandalism-related page resets and it could probably use another clean-up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.171.34 (talk) 18:54, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate Style & Inaccurate Information: Introduction
As indicated in the "Vandalism" section above, the introduction to this page is inappropriate. It cites no references, despite very specific claims about objects' interactions with light, e.g. "When transparent objects (i.e. glass) have light shone through them only 90% of it goes through the object. The other 10% refracts and goes to your eye." A "misty" object (whatever that is): 50%. Where are these numbers coming from?? It simply cannot be true that all transparent objects everywhere allow 90% of light through them, "refract" (reflect?) the rest, and absorb nothing. And a light source is an accelerator? What does that even mean? It then proceeds to indicate that this "accelerator", ostensibly the source of all light, produces intense beams of X-Ray, UV and IR radiation, in spite of the beginning of this very introduction defining "light" as visible EM radiation. Weird, wandering, inaccurate, inconsistent/contradictory information that is in no way encyclopedic. Definitely needs to be entirely re-written. Bthomas001 (talk) 15:19, 21 June 2015 (UTC) bT

No main articles
We use the redirects, no main articles for headings. We need more organization of the listings.--Wyn.junior (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Fireworks?
Is it right to have fireworks under incandescence but not also luminescence? Most fireworks that produce colored flames rely on luminescence. AbsconditumEtIncognitum (talk) 21:27, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Thing that emit light in space
Light bulbs are not in space and that is that it said so fix it please I need to learn 199.7.159.80 (talk) 21:59, 25 January 2022 (UTC)