End of Life
Mercury vapor lamps do burn out eventually as the burner electrodes wear, increasing the arc gap. As the lamp nears the end of life, lumen depreciation becomes noticeable. This comes about because the emitter is deposited as a film darkening the arctube wall and reducing light output.
Read more about this topic: Mercury-vapor Lamp
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)