I was given a beautiful bulb and power supply today - rescued from a dumpster.
I was hoping it would turn out to be a mercury lamp, but it turned out to be sodium.
It is very cool, but I am wondering if it has any uses. (Beyond the obvious of course.)
(Not sure why the photos went sideways.)charley1957 - 29-11-2024 at 07:39
There’s a video on YouTube showing how to burn a ‘dark flame’ under a sodium lamp by burning a sodium chloride compound. I’ve done it and
it’s quite impressive. Beyond that I haven’t really researched what else I can do with it. It’s really a big bulb, and I need to see what else
I can do with it. YouTube always seems to have a lot of good ideas for things like that. Enjoy!unionised - 29-11-2024 at 08:01
You can look at it through a Neodymium glass filter. bnull - 29-11-2024 at 09:29
Quote:
Not sure why the photos went sideways.
It seems the software auto-orients the images based on their dimensions. I tried uploading images as they were taken and rotated 90 degrees but the
result was always the same. I don't know if there is a way to override that.
Texas Red absorbs light in the region of the sodium lines (589 nm). There may be a photochemical reaction that uses the dye. If this reaction will be
interesting is a good question.clearly_not_atara - 29-11-2024 at 10:39
Probably good for working with light-sensitive compounds?Dr.Bob - 1-12-2024 at 07:50
Most light sensitive compounds do best with red light. Yellow would be better than blue, but not as good as red. You could make a really big
polarimeter, they use the Na line to measure light rotation at one major wavelength. But that might looks bigger than normal, but it would allow you
to measure rotations for really dark solutions. They are great for lighting up big places in a way that make people look sickly. Thankfully, most
of those have been replaced by LEDs, which often are way too blue and also make people look bad.
Does being in Australia make light rotate the opposite way as in the Northern hemisphere? ;-)
[Edited on 1-12-2024 by Dr.Bob]Twospoons - 1-12-2024 at 12:13
Does being in Australia make light rotate the opposite way as in the Northern hemisphere? ;-)
Yes. Thats why our light switches are inverted compared to America.Cathoderay - 4-12-2024 at 17:58
Not a lot of chemistry uses. Some physics uses.
One scientific use of a sodium lamp was the Michelson-Morley experiment.
I think this Wikipedia entry has an error, white light might have been used for alignment but the experiment used sodium light. They would only need a
small lamp however. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...
Another use is for testing optical surfaces. The optical box in this video produces a interferometer. A big lamp might allow its use on very big
flats and lenses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfamvm1GM9k
