I was so confused at first why he stopped the intro. How are we nearly 2 weeks into December????

It's uh ... Do no effort December

I was prepared for "there's so little effort, I didn't even check the date/get this video out on time"

Muhahaha

Eh, might as well be “Effort Free Eternity” - It would pass my vibe check.

Same here! I just shined my phone light on my power strip's flickering light and was properly awed. We've been enlightened!

Same. I got a whole set of extension cords which, I discovered after getting home, have lights inside. But when it's dark, they flicker. If I shine even a tiny amount of light at them, the glow becomes solid. I always wondered WTF was going on... like if it had a light sensor or something.

Now I feel compelled to check all the power strips in my house. Some are 30 to 40 years old, so this should be fun.

@@ToyKeeper In a way, the discharge lamp _is_ the sensor

Power strips should be replaced every 5 years or so. If it's been that long, it probably won't do it's job in an overload.

Thank you! I was looking for someone mentioning sodium! I suspected that the coating on the electrodes was sodium since the glow is almost the exact same colour as sodium streetlights, and on exposure to air the immediate oxidation that took place (Sodium oxidation is a white colour too, like potassium). That explains it :D

To throw a monkey wrench in the works, the barium he mentioned also turns a white color when it oxidizes.

@@hydrocarbon8272 Barium is quite expensive AFAIK, I doubt they would use it in these cheap lamps.

Yes this is fully correct.

That makes sense. Sodium would oxidize and turn white quickly when exposed to air so that was my first guess

i know what it is but i dont know what the CC stands for... do you know it? i mean the two letter have to stand for something dont they?

@@russellross1513 thank you for the answer :) does the black enclosement/background serve a purpose? to make them easier to read and more accessable?

He even has a video about closed captions

@@lucaskook9440 this very channel has a video about Closed Captioning and the history of accessibility on TV, and I cannot recommend it enough. I've worked with people with hearing disabilities before, and one of the sentences in that video (that the time from an invention that can be used for sending pictures instead of just audio and the time someone decided to use that to make it dead-accessible is absurdly long) was an amazing insight

@@lucaskook9440 you can actually change the background and text styles

Back in my childhood I remember us using some of these for Halloween, and while they don't run hot (these tested at .9 watts) they still don't last long. They sort of lose their spice as they age and get less and less flickery, ironically. It seemed often you're left with just a tiny glow at the base, though I'm not sure we had one that got to that point. Definitely seen that in the wild, though. Come to think of it, I think that's more evidence that the gas mixture is deliberately poor - it would seem they have little margin for error if they wear out so (relatively) fast.

Was literally coming down here to put the obligatory “get bigclive in here” comment, just to find he’s already here. Typical bigclive. Also, this is why I love this platform. Two of my favorite channels geeking out about such niche topics.

@@TechnologyConnections my guess would be not the gas quality, but the pressure, higher pressure means its more insulative, meaning at full mains voltage, it could be only on the verge of conducting, making it flicker. Also the coating is a elentron emissive layer, to lower the voltage needed to strike the gas, but dont ask me for whats it actually made out of, i dont know that( maybe some thorium compound based on the fact it got white near oxygen)

Also cold striking a metal in low pressure makes metal "sputter" away from the surface, wich is the failure mode of all gas discharge lamps, but is an essential building block of semiconductor manufacturing

Off to BigClive's channel next!

Cool, thanks for the input.

This is what my assumption about those style of lights were as well, deliberately seeding chaos with a little impurity in the gas mixes to create the desired effect. Happens with other things so makes sense with neon lights.

Does this ever cause a sound? I’ve thrown out flickering power strips because they made an insufferable high pitched whine.

Do you know how much of a vacuum you pulled on the tubes?

@@James_Haskin Yes. The buzz gets louder. I assumed it is because it put the transformer under extra load.

😂

?

They won't. We're not running out of neon :D

@@tsm688 as if that's ever been a solid line of reasoning. as long as people keep buying them, they'll keep making them. that's all there is to it

@@Sillimant_ Except LEDs are replacing everyting from neon signs to fluorescent tubes to halogen and incandescent bulbs as well as sodium and metal halide ones. In fact some places like the European Union are now outrightly banning pretty much every lamp that is not LED-based ! 😱😱

​@@psirvent8won't happen unless there's a cheaper way of making an led version. Capitalism rules all

Tiny campfire in a bottle is a perfect description of these lamps, and very appropriate as several of the novelty lamps I've seen meant for use with flicker bulbs use them to represent a campfire.

It happens. I have an electric blanket controller where the setting number only shows in flickering orange on black when you shine a little light into it.

similar to a Geiger-Muller tube Gas tubes rely on some residual ionization in order to strike

@@tactileslut I have seen this on electric blankets!

As soon as I heard that I literally paused the video and shined a flashlight onto a very similar power strip indicator that I have.

The fluorescent bathroom lights at our previous home would not strike in total darkness - but they'd turn right on in the presence of any hint of ambient light. I'm an electronics technician, and this never made any sense to me (nor any of my co-workers); it's wonderful to finally hear an explanation!

He could go one further by doing Dekatrons. Check out the ANITA calculator. The worlds first fully electronic calculator. It used Neon for both the Displays and logic.

Techmoan does a couple videos on nixie tubes and nixie clocks , there good

@@shuppy100 Seen them, they are great. But they lack puns...

Flickering fake-flame light bulb: kitsch Nixie tube: kitsch....for science!

@@klausstock8020 The flickering fake flame lightbulbs really are a kitch made for the sake of being kitch. Nixie tubes (or Digitrony as they are known here in Eastern Europe) might be kitch today, but they used to be really useful scientific instruments. The clock I bought for my father are not made from new nixie tubes (as there is just one person in the world who makes these, he's Czech and his creations are kinda expensive), they are repurposed spare parts for some 70s Soviet scientific machine...

Thanks for sharing.

Many years ago, I used to work in the Shows department at Sea World. One of my duties was to go around to each of the park venues in the morning, and get the show elements up and running for the day. We carried walkie-talkies, which was very handy when a fluorescent tube would 'burble' at the ends, but didn't want to start. If you key the mic button, with the antenna near the tube, you can see the RF field exciting the gas molecules in the UV, which would then excite the phosphor. Hit the right spot, and you have a good chance of helping the starter enough to get the end-to-end plasma discharge established for the day.

@@CineSoar wow thats really interesting! That even RF of that value can do it!

i have a laser pointer in the blackligbt range, would that work you think? (take the lens off and its good for hunting centipedes)

@@soslunnaak I would imagine if a PTT radio would work then a UV laser pointer would but I dont know personally!

@@soslunnaak how is a laser helpful for finding bugs? Wouldn’t you like need to already see the bug to point the laser even close?

I like that he saves the bloopers for the credits instead of keeping it in the video. It seems more genuine than keeping it in to appear quirky or whatever it is.

Who else would he be? Jokes aside…The only times I’ve ever felt he was being less than genuine or putting on an act/playing a character of sorts is when he makes pre-written jokes. I forget what it was but at the intro of this one was an example…the acting like he was trying to figure out how to fix the problem that it isn’t no effort November anymore gives me that vibe. Not so much when he makes the comment about it being December but the pretending to be scrambling for a solution but…I can’t decide if I’m just picking up on his forcing it or if he’s just a really bad actor so we can sense his discomfort with doing those “scenes”. There’s some examples of this in the bloopers as well…though I think he’s gotten much better at not forcing those over time. Having said ask that it doesn’t matter at all obviously because Idgaf and I’m not here for jokes and he never overindulges so It’s never an issue and the content I do watch for is always superb so he can act away afaic

0:07 🎉🎉🎉

@@Fee.1 I find that that kind of dorkiness is part of him being genuinely him. It's also so obviously an act that I can't take it as trying to actually appear genuine.

@@orangeapples that’s hilarious, people who like the goofs left in like it because it feels more human to them too. goes to show we all perceive things v differently

Get this more up

Yeah, first time I saw one of those, I thought it was a real flame

Right? We have some at work and it happens to me all the time.

Wife bought some and they ARE freakily realistic looking.

Don't get used to em, you'll burn yourself on a real candle.

Iirc Big clive did a video on them many years ago.

I love how you brought the power strip light and the photon affect into this. I had noticed that years ago. You answered your own question about the coding on the electrodes when you opened the bulbs envelope. It is a getter to assure there's no oxygen in the bulb. My experiments with those bulbs has led me to believe the design deliberately under drives the gases on the outside of the gap preventing the outside surfaces from glowing completely and stably. By raising the voltage you can almost get complete illumination before you get arcing in between the two electrodes and the imminent explosion. 😲😖🥺 P. S. Using a high voltage transformer low amperage and single side exciting the bulb gases you can of course get the whole lamp to Glow

Thats why Im a subscriber!

My mom has had these for decades, but I've never once thought about how they worked.

I would've assumed it was the house wiring.

Well, can you completely rule out the possibility of ghosts?

A bunch of neon bulb indicator lamp variants add a bit of mildly radioactive material to help initiate the arc. Get your initiating energy where you can I suppose!

@@KonamiKonami I actually did think that maybe the additional power drawn by the desk light might have been responsible. I just never really pursued the matter. A flickering neon light was of little consequence to me, despite the odd behavior.

This phenomena is related with the photoelectric effect. Essentially photons with more or less the wavelength (energy) of the photons that occurs in the electric discharge are more prone to free more electrons from the plasma, lowering the electrical resistance of the gas and improving the stability of the discharge.

In organs neons were used along with an RC network to create divide by two circuits (which you need for octaves). Check out the Dekatron, a divide by ten circuit using neon. At college (in the early 1980s) they had some Geiger counters which used those both as the counter and the display. I haven't come across Neons being used as sensors but can believe it. In fact the Geiger Tube itself works using gas discharge. Some early computers used Neon based logic. I read about a Soviet one where they had to put normal lights inside as well as it would work perfectly until they put the case covers on.

Opto couplers used with kidneys , livers and heart's is a fascinating subject... Its not everyday you get the opportunity to sell $26 worth of Frog's teeth.

Cool

yes, slo mo guys where are you?

Someone needs to get the slo-mo guys on this.

Yeah, someone get Gav and Dan in here!

I'll have to try that, 240V over hear should do a better job.

I've never watched something and so quickly decided, some one needs to get him a Red.

Really want to find out if they still make those, can't find anything yet, but not sure what key words to use

@@karlselewski5599, type in, "aerolux". They are a form of a Crookes tube.

And I thought I was risking it bringing back a 6" Christmas bauble in a budget flight hand-luggage!

i rrmb in the late 90s. they where a waste of a light socket but kinda neat

@@karlselewski5599 I found some on e-bay but not all of them run on 120Vac some are 220Vac.

I know it's been three weeks, but I think, from all of us, we hope that your family member is alive and well.

@@liyifenn I cannot give good news. Things progressed and cancer did what it does. My mother will be missed. Thank you for your thoughts and wishes truly.

The getters we used in laser manufacture would be damaged instantly if heated in the presence of oxygen. It makes sense that they would just put material on the electrodes as a getter since the impurities of oxygen contaminated getter would actually help this effect.

EXACTLY my thought. Had to think of this when he was talking about the discharge fluctuations, or even the AC causing alternating glow. After the Vid with Medhi electronics in Slo-Mo has become kind of an interesting subject.

Agree!! I follow both and this video followed the latest SMG video on auto-play, KZfaq knows it's right!

You read my mind

And Electro Boom to explain the flicker.

I have a Mighty Need!

I would have used that as an example if I had one, but sadly I don't!

@@TechnologyConnections woah - and now I know why they stop working after 20 years or so ;)

The other way around is also neat for a cellar or attic, where the light switch could be before you go in. indicating if the light is on for if u forget. Since u dont go there 24/7 and u don't see the light is on, so if u forget it shows u :)

Here in Germany you'd typically have these indicators in light switches for apartment stairwells and so on, but not in people's homes. I guess usually you'd not forget where the light switch is in your own home.

I have one of those in my bedroom! It's very flickery though and sometimes does not turn on at all.

I think you have to buy some decorative neon (gas-discharge) lamps, they are really beautiful but it is hard to find them these days...

I'm not looking to buy any, I was just saying where I had seen something similar in the past.@@SkinnyVampiress

Nope. It's demons!

@@dotar9586 It's always the simpler explanation that is the correct one.

If you miss them, nowadays you can buy a Nixie Clock; it's a clock made with modern electronics and Soviet Union era Nixie tubes as indicators. I have one with 4 tubes, made by Millclock in Ukraine that costs less than $ 200. Techmoan has reviewed at least 3 different Nixie clocks.

@@alvaros. Yea I've looked into them. Just not sure if I want to bite the bullet yet on one. They're very cool and certainly getting harder to come by. But that's a lot of money for what is just a clock at the end of the day 😅

Check out Techmoan’s channel. He’s done a number of videos on Nixie tubes.

check out Applied Science.

Yes, Nixie tube video please!

My uncle has a flame lamp going strong for something like 35-36 years!!!

@@franky2shoes660 my grandpa has one that has been going strong for 42 years and counting(it was always on, too!)!

😂😂

I do wish I could find some actual 40 and 60 watt LED bulbs for my (shaded) lamps and floodlights. I mean why not? The fixture is rated for that or more anyway

Its not actually a Christmas light. My grandparents used to have a light fitted with these bulbs year round, and they're definitely not the kind of people to keep Christmas decorations up for a long time afterwards.

These aren't obscure? They're everywhere.

@@androiduberalles probably depends on where you live how common they are

@@ComradePhoenix I love how you use your grandparents as a sort of source, or explanation to prove your point. Yet none of us know them, and even if we did it wouldn't make your statement any more credible

@@conman1395 ok, ben shapiro wannabe.

interesting, seems plausible to me, lets see if mr. connections sees this

This wouldn't explain the quick white oxidation

@@Evan---- what if there is some metal ion sputtering occurring between the plates, and when he busted it open, it rapidly oxidized?

@@Hardwyre iron has a distinct rusty colored oxidation

@@johnmeyer8078 zinc and aluminium oxidise white, any chance it could be one of these?

in japan, this idea is called "kintsugi" the beauty of broken things

Same, I would like to add that for some reason it's always surprising. I guess he just makes things feel really special, so there's no way he could get even more! Lol

Stops as in stays off, or stops as in the discharge becomes stable?

@@monkeywithocd we also have a pretty old one we use every christmas and the flickering can indeed stop as in it glows in a single, stable, spot for a while

Mine lamp is ~50 years old and it still works. However it flickers only around edges now. Do not know how it worked when it was new.

mine did to and some of my aunts i always wondered how they worked as i got older i kind of thought it worked like a neon indicator bulb cause of the color i was right

I noticed how my kid loves the Christmas tree lights, and when I observed him, memories of my own fascination with little coloured lights at that age as well. He does the same thing at a fireplace. It must be some kind of human condition related to light/fire.

@@ericmoeller3634 its because a) the electrodes are huge and flat, and b) there isn't quite enough power to illuminate the entire lamp So it starts in some random place and wanders, just because there's always room left for it to wander. Run it hotter and the whole thing would light up, and it'd stop wandering.

@@tsm688 he already explained how they worked but than you very much for letting me know again i really appreciate it

We lived in Alaska when I was about 9, in the mid-70s. My mother broke out some new Xmas decorations the first year there, and among the stuff were some of these lamps. I remember just being captivated by how pretty I thought they were, as well as thinking they were very "warm" and comforting in some way. Very Xmassy and homey. There were other interesting things, like color wheels, and all these decorations were beautiful just toys to me. They lent a special beauty to our living room and the tree. We left them behind when we moved away, and I always missed them, especially these flickering "candle" bulbs. I'm glad that you will be able to retain your grandmother's light. If I still had my mom's light, I would still bring it out every Xmas, even though I never decorate or have a tree.

The reason that flickering or even seemingly dead neon lamps will start working when they're externally lit is that the light photons creates enough excitement inside the lamp to get the gas discharge going again. Even a tiny amount of external light stimulus is enough to get an unstable neon light stable. I've done experiments with dimly lit LEDs pointing at unstable neon lamps in switches, and they get stable. Seemingly dead neon lamps sometimes turn on as well, but they're usually very unstable.

Ah 1971, brings back memories, I was a Sophomore in high school, and for Christmas, my dad and I assembled a Revel®Apollo + Saturn V model that was nearly 3 feet tall and had hundreds of pieces❤. A few years ago my grandchildren & I (mostly grandchildren) assembled the Leggo version of the Saturn V with 1969 peices❤that they gave me as a gift.

@@GGigabiteM alec literally mentioned this

Fridge that only flickers during night.....i would have given that fridge to church too.

I found some old schematics for an automatic light switch which exploited this, so the idea is you balance the current through the thyratron (which is the same thing as a neon lamp but has three electrodes). And if tuned properly it can only turn on when there is enough light. So at night it is off, current don't flow through it which in turns make it enough to trigger another thyratron biased differently and it triggers a relay coil. And this switches the street light on. No semiconductors or transistors or anything :)

A spam bot has copied your comment and is using it to bait people.

that's such a gimmicky thing to do for an actual religion lol

@@snerttt religion is a gimmick in itself

Where I used to live, a public building had the original gas luminaires, except long before I was born they were converted to use electricity. Perhaps, such was the case at your church, as well.

It's possible that they confused "gas discharge" for "gas powered". Either way, they knew it wasn't a non-consuming flame.

I can reccomend one of those Himalaya salt lamps. The health claims are bs, but they give a very plesans night light.

GE NE-34 & AR-1 are some of my favorite bulbs :)

@Banter Maestro2 I know the exact light fixture you're talking about. My grandparents have a bunch of them scattered around their house and our vacation property, all going strong though a little yellow from age.

i have lots of these in my house as it came with the house

agggg Laser death blue. A while back I got one of those little folding speaker things that were like cheap. However I got the green one and what did it come with a power status LED when turned on that could light my entire room up neon blue.... After about six months I ended up changing the LED.

Old electronics were kind of bad about that. Newer ones not so much.

I can picture this clearly. Grazie!

I love that my reaction to the Italian restaurant comment is pretty much "what are you talking ab-*thinks about it for a second*-Ok actually yeah what's up with that?"

Italian restaurants are almost as scary as walking through a peach orchard. You just never know what's gonna happen, right?

@@lebowskiunderachiever3591 are you referring to being able to picture clearly the hallway or the Italian restaurant? Choose your answer carefully as I'm half Italian.... And remember the media always portrays Italians in such a bad and stereotypical manner....

* gestures angrily in pasta *

For me it was realization that they might flicker only in complete darkness. I have one power strip that flickers but not if the lights are on in the room. I thought I might be crazy or I might only be able to perceive the flicker in darkness, but it didn't seem to me like the problem was my eyes. But the stuff about external photons helping with neon reach it's excited state make so much sense.

I've got an old chest freezer with a power indicator that does the same, and I've always wondered why. Now I know!

same some of my lightswitches have an indicator that flickers

Yes the neon lights can be excited by light which I think it was a Mr. Carson's lab video had a test instrument with calibrated neon bulbs! And big Clive made some flickering neon indicator bulb fairy lights. I didn't know about the opposite making them stop flickering but it makes sense.

In a couple years he’ll go full ElectroBoom

@@JoelFroese This is the way.

idk he just didn't want viewers killing themselves maybe.

@@Hansengineering We are a dubious and unpredictably silly lot. It's defensible. ;o)

It's OK it's OHSA approved.

Literally almost January and I wouldn’t have questioned a thing if he said it was still November

Look up the Balafire bulb, I bet it was one of those. They are no longer in production. I got one from Spencer's at the mall in the early 1990's and it still works. I used it all the time when I first got it, and all throughout college, and now I just pull it out to show it to people now and then. It's not rated to last very long, no idea how mine is still working fine after almost 30 years.

@@joutoob9 You can actually connect some resistance in series with it, to drive it a little less bright but it will increase its lifespan a lot. At half brightness you may expect maybe 10x longer operation.. And if it eventually wont start you just shock it with a piezo element from a lighter, it will clear some contacts inside enough to start glowing again, it works with even totally black neon lamps so should work for bigger ones I think...

Of course Big Clive has covered this! Why didn't I think of that?

@@TechnologyConnections Yeah, but you exploded TWO neon bulbs in your video, and Clive didn't. LOL

I tracked down the video and it seemed we've arrived at pretty much the same conclusions - although more resistance did make the spots that glow smaller so the test I did with the indicators may have just been totally irrelevant. Then again, that may be compounded with the electrode coating so... who knows! It's weird how little is known about these things, but they're still being manufactured so clearly somebody's got the info out there

@@TechnologyConnections That coating seems to have bit like getter in vacuum tubes.

@@TechnologyConnections - You should be careful, Big-Neon doubtlessly have powerful connections - I bet this goes right to the top!

I’m weird like that too! Curiousity is the best trait.

I was thinking this too!

OR try a hair dryer. I grew up in south florida where it is always the same temperature every day, all year, lol .... I saw these bulbs stick. They would light in one spot only, sometimes "break loose" and the plasma move, but as soon as it would relight that particular section, it would simply, again, stop flickering ... maybe as the bulb ages, certain place on the filament changes to be comfortable conducting in that spot continually ... so, maybe it was the constant heat making the older lamp able to glow with stability ... you described the heat thing inside tge bulb, and your explanation requires changing dynamic heat fluctuations, suggesting to be that the light might work better when the ambient temperature is cooler

I think it really has something to do. A couple of years ago I made a very long experiment with some neon lamps to see how they aged with different kind of voltage supply. For over a year I connected two neon lamps (I think the model is IN-3, those are DC because it has a cathode that is supposed to light up) direct to mains power through a resistor, two being driven with pulsating DC, and other two with filtererd DC. The AC powered lamps started flickering erratically (and the flicker was altered by light being projected into the lamp!). All the lamps were driven with some overcurrent to produce the aging and only the ones powered with AC showed the flickering, the other ones just dimmed a bit. It wasn't really a serious experiment, but kinda interesting to do.

@@ikastolero the trapped condition inside the lamp, if two columns equally heated, one then theother,then the first one, etc. That condition would be different from pulsed DC that implies a high voltage to breakdown or whatever the terminology, one colum only, within the trapped space, thus pulsed DC would make one column of plasma heat, vs. AC implied each alternate phase is sufficient voltage to breakdown, would heat both, one or other always on, compared with just one blinking faster than your eye, at the rate of the dc pulse ... but, truly, long ago they taught only three states of matter, while today, you have cold plasma. How does that work, you might want to learn ... imagine future crystal contraption you could hold in your hand, yet the crystal produces a high energy stream of e ... similar to that story about the christmas tree light, or using UV to shine into the bulb, increase of e in there ... the crystal stream of so called particles would or could or if, in some future, you create the ions without raising the temperature so much, like a Cold Plasma Light saber-like gizmo ... yeah, Cold Plasma is what advice Dustin Hoffman would get, if he were to graduate today 😉👍

I've committed this error and exploded one neon when I was a teen, and was on worst way possible, so near the main board, exploded so violently due high current! 😂

I only wish it was shot at a higher frame rate for some really good slowmosion (not a spelling error, just a portmanteau of slowmotion and explosion) footage. Nonetheless, I enjoyed watching it.

Cool how he breaks things for science, and also the ability to make an extremely popular video even when it's about tiny wee ornamentsal lamps is something l respect and envy. If I could somehow make a video with almost a million views I would happily break my mother's teeth if that was what it took.

Need a Technology Connections, ElectroBoom, and Slow Mo Guys collab.

Reminded me more of Photonicinduction

I really felt it when he said that.

@@spugintrntl Alec gets me, he really gets me!!!

Yeah, I've been thinking the same! Thought it was a loose wire or something

As with many things in theatre: distance hides a multitude of sins

There's a modern version coming up, realistic enough it actually fools people

There's one in my basement that flickers even while lit. I didn't know why, and I accidentally just learned from this video! It makes sense, because the switch has been on for at least a decade.

What does the DZ signify?

@@RossOlsonDotCom Discovery Zone

As soon as I noticed it I had to check if I was alone. Glad to see I'm not the only one that caught it

Absolutely! Going down those roller-slides was always my favorite 😂

DZ!

It's exercise for your immune system.

The 1,000 gallon ball washing tank in the back says it all. . .

One company actually made amplifiers out of VFD’s, and they work really well! They’re basically triodes.

@@5roundsrapid263 I've seen a superhet radio constructed entirely out of tuning-eye tubes (6E5s mostly I think). Those likewise are triodes with an indicating structure added. If I recall correctly, there were 7 or 8 such eye tubes in the radio, and they displayed differently as you tuned the radio.

Fran Blanche has done some great videos on weird historic indicator tubes

I believe he's already done a VFD video.

@@thomaswilliams2273 what is VFD Video?

Did they give you a fair price for your magical fluids?

@@Hunnter2k3 I bought some for a few bucks, but it didn't come out of no lightbulb

Holy shit that is wild. I'm really glad you're okay now!

Potion Seller, I am going into battle, and I need your strongest potions!

@@ShallowVA In a perfect world, men like me would not exist - but this is not a perfect world.

Hmm. Yeah, check for Thorium.

@@BixbyConsequence Why should he?

@@BixbyConsequence Ni-63 or Kr-85 was more commonly used. Sometimes, a radium-doped paint was applied externally to the envelope when used in non-visual (voltage regulator/reference) applications. These need careful handling/disposal, as the paint is often flaking off...

@@bobweiss8682 The material in these is usually just sodium since it's dirt cheap and contributes a pleasing yellow.