FIREFLIES AND NEON LIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 56, 4 September 1934, Page 16

FIREFLIES AND NEON LIGHTS

For long scientists have directed their efforts' to the production of a perfect "cold" light. At present, much of the energy necessary for the production of light is dissipated in-waste heat. The electric light globe represents a notable advance on the gas flflme and the kerosene lamp, but even in that form of lighting much of the energy is lost in the production of heat that cannot bo used.

Mr. D. P. Mellor told members of tho Royal Society of New South Wales on August 1 that while the production of light from glowing electrically-excited vapours and gases like mercury and neon marked considerable progress towards an ideal "cold" light, the most successful achievment in this direction was to be found in luminous organisms like glowworms and fireflies. The production of light in those organisms, he said, had nothing whatever to do with the .glowing of, phosphorus, but was in every instance the result of a chemical action between, two very complex substances, whose exact nature was not yet known. Luminescence was confined largely to the lower organisms. The occasionally-observed luminescence of human beings had generally been traced to the activities of luminous bacteria.

Some beautiful experiments imitative of the effects of fireflies' were shown with substances made in the laboratory. The light produced by mixing the appropriate ice-cool solutions was sufficient to rend a newspaper at a distance of several feet.