A neon lamp (also neon glow lamp) is a miniature gas discharge lamp that typically contains neon gas at a low pressure in a glass capsule. Only a thin region adjacent to the electrodes glows in these lamps, which distinguishes them from the much longer and brighter neon tubes used for signage. The term "neon lamp" is generally extended to lamps with similar design that operate with different gases. Neon glow lamps were very common in the displays of electronic instruments through the 1970s; the basic design of neon lamps is now incorporated in contemporary plasma displays.
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Famous quotes containing the words neon and/or lamp:
“A pragmatic race, the Japanese appear to have decided long ago that the only reason for drinking alcohol is to become intoxicated and therefore drink only when they wish to be drunk.
So I went out into the night and the neon and let the crowd pull me along, walking blind, willing myself to be just a segment of that mass organism, just one more drifting chip of consciousness under the geodesics.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.”
—Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961)