Neon Lighting

By: William Luer

INTRODUCTION

Neon Lighting was unveiled at The Paris Motor Show on December 3, 1910 by a man named Georges Claude. Georges Claude was an influential French engineer and inventor who was considered by many to be the “Edison of France.” Nowadays, neon lighting is everywhere. It would be difficult to go out at night and not see any of the brightly colored lights that havecome to fill up almost every square inch of our society.

DISCOVERY/INVENTION

Neon lights work by heating the element neon within an enclosed container. The lights of which are commonly seen around cities are made possible by filling glass tubes with neon and exciting the gas with an electrode positioned at one end of the tube. With the flick of a switch, the electrode is turned on and begins to heat up the neon. When the gas becomes heated to a certain point, it gives off a certain brightness that has come to be associated with neon.

Besides neon, there are other types of lights and light bulbs such as fluorescent and iridescent lights. Fluorescent light bulbs work nearly the same as neon light bulbs.

The main difference between the two is the kind of gas that is used. Fluorescent bulbs use about a drop of Mercury gas inside of a vacuum. However the light given off by mercury is outside the visible light spectrum, therefore causing it to be invisible to the human eye. Manufacturers overcome this by painting phosphors on the outside of the bulb. Upon being hit by the invisible mercurial light, phosphors give off a white glow which allow for humans to see the light. Incandescent lights work differently than the previously mentioned bulbs. Instead of heating a gas, incandescent bulbs work by heating a tungsten filament to about 4500o F where it begins to glow.

A mistake commonly made by people is that they assume that all brightly colored lights are neon lights. In fact, most “neon” lights are not neon at all. For example, “neon” blue lights are actually filled with a very high concentration of mercury gas, yellow lights are filled with sodium gas, gold lights are filled with helium, and whites are made of carbon dioxide. There are over 150 different colors that can be made and despite the different gases used, the technology is identical.

BIOGRAPHY

Georges Claude was born on September 24, 1870 in Paris, France. After graduating from school, he held several job positions. He worked as an electrical inspector in a cable factory, the laboratory manager in an electric works as well as f

ounding his own magazine, The Electric Spark. In 1902, Claude invented a system for liquefying large quantities of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, which is now known creatively as the Claude system for liquefying air.
Georges Claude had interesting views on how the government of France should be run. He thought that democracy was futile and he was part of a group that promoted the restoration of a monarchy to France. During World War II, Claude publically supported France’s collaboration with Germany. However, when the Allies liberated France in 1944, Claude was taken into custody, stripped of his rank at the French Academy of Sciences, and condemned to life in prison. He only spent 6 years in prison before being released and ten years after that, on May 23, 1960, Claude passed away in Saint-Cloud, France.

IMPACT ON WORLD

A world without neon lights would be hard to imagine. The wide-ranging impacts of neon lights have affected many aspects of society such as business, nightlife, flying, and communication. Throughout the early 1930s Claude and his U.S. company, Claude Neon Lights, held one of the largest monopolies of the time because they held the patent for the electrode.

Nowadays, if a company does not promote its business with large, obtrusive neon lights, it is assumed that they are shut down or closed. The whole concept of outdoor advertising has become an art form. Take a look at Times Square or Las Vegas for example, the buildings are bursting with colors which make the cities all the more exciting and enjoyable. Neon lights are also used for communication in airplanes and helicopters because the light given off by neon can be seen from distances much farther than other light bulbs. Pilots have even reported seeing neon lights from over 20 miles away.

The largest neon sign in the United States belongs to the Jack Rabbit Beans

Company in Saginaw, Michigan. The sign reads “BEANS” and stands 35 feet tall and stretches for over 50 feet.

JOURNAL ARTICLE

The Journal Article I read outlines an experiment done to evaluate the effect of neon lights and the growth of rabbit hair. There were 45 rabbits in this experiment who were split into three groups of 15. Each group in this experiment was exposed to one of three situations. The first is strictly neon light, the second is complete darkness, and the third being of diffused, filtered sunlight.
In this experiment, the 45 rabbits were all shaved at corresponding areas of their body and put into three groups inside of their testing habitat. They were evaluated every week for 23 weeks and at the end, the scientists were able to come to the conclusion that the conditions “affected the proliferative activity of hair follicles in a manner and to an extent comparable with the effects produced by the same environmental conditions on the growth and nutrition of the animals themselves.”

LIST OF REFERENCES

Brown, W.H. (1928). Influence of light environment on the growth of hair in normal rabbits with especial reference to the action of neon light. . Retrieved from http://jem.rupress.org/content/48/1/57.full.pdf+html

How does a neon sign work. Retrieved from http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/how-does-a-neon-sign-wor

Peachtron, . (2008, April 23). How do neon signs work?. Retrieved from http://hubpages.com/hub/How-Do-Neon-Signs-Work

Perlman, I. (n.d.). Georges claude biography. Retrieved from http://www.bookrags.com/biography/georges-claude-woi/

Wagner, R. (n.d.). History of neon signs. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/facts_4899681_history-neon-signs.html

What's the difference between neon lights and fluorescent lights?. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/whats-the-difference-between-neon-lights-and-fluorescent-lights