The advent of CFL (compact fluorescent light) and LED technology has largely mitigated that annoying moment when a light bulb burns out and needs to be replaced. They last a long time (which is great), but they still don’t last nearly as long as this bulb has – it’s been burning since 1901.
That’s 118 years, for my fellow maths-challenged folks.
It’s outlasted the Shelby Electric Company, which manufactured it in 1898, by 107 years.
The bulb has a carbon filament that, from below, seems looped around to look like the word ‘no,’ written in cursive. It’s thought to be a 60-watt model, but it currently burns (and burns and burns) at only 4 watts.
It hangs from a cord in the ceiling of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department’s Fire Station #6, in Livermore California. In 2015, the city held a party there to celebrate its one millionth hour of operation, where the town’s officials enjoyed food, drinks, and music while they toasted the bulb as it burned overheard.
Like always.
Livermore is about an hour east of San Francisco, in a valley surrounded by hills, and – aside from the lightbulb – it isn’t exactly a tourist destination. If you want to view the bulb, you have to ring the bell at the back of the fire station and head into a shop area, where you’ll notice cameras pointed at the little burning light.
Because it has its own live stream, of course.
The firefighters there are ready to fight fires, and also to give historical light bulb tours if someone stops by – and they do, on average a couple of times a day. Sometimes people come in groups, sometimes one at a time, but if an emergency call comes in everyone gets the boot.
Cause safety first.
Thomas Bramell wrote a book about the bulb, A Million Hours of Service, that’s available for purchase at the fire station, along with t-shirts and other memorabilia.
This curious little piece of history was gifted to the fire department by businessman Dennis F. Bernal in 1901 – not purposely, but as part of a larger donation to the city. John Jensen, who served as a Livermore firefighter starting in 1905, recalls the light always being on. The men used it as an emergency light, there to help them see any time of the day or night.
There have been a few times over the years (4, to be exact) when the bulb has not been burning:
In 1906, the bulb was moved from a fire house on Second Street to a new fire station on First Street.
In 1937, the bulb was off during renovations.
In 1976 the bulb was moved to the fire station where it resides today – it was off for about 22 minutes.
On May 20, 2013, the bulb went off in the early morning hours when its power supply malfunctioned. A man watching the livestream in Australia alerted the firemen to the outage, which was fixed after 9 hours (and I’m sure a few heart palpitations).
There are 3 theories on why the bulb hasn’t burned out after all of this time.
- Consistency: Some people think the fact that the bulb has only rarely been switched off and on has saved the filament. Without having to cool down and heat up on the regular, it saves whatever quality allows it to keep burning.
- It’s just one of those things: you know, a happy accident of the secret manufacturing process.
- They don’t make them like they used to: In late 1924, executives from GE, Philips, Tokyo Electric, Osram, Compagnie des Lampes, and other light bulb manufacturers met in Geneva and hatched a plan to limit the average lightbulb’s life to around 1,000 hours – about half of the average at the time.
“The cartel took its business of shortening the lifetime of bulbs every bit as seriously as earlier researchers had approached their job of lengthening it,” wrote Markus Krajewski in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. “Each factory bound by the cartel agreement – and there were hundreds, including GE’s numerous licenses throughout the world – had to regularly send samples of its bulbs to a central testing laboratory in Switzerland. There, the bulbs were thoroughly vetted against cartel standards.”
Though the cartel unraveled in the 1930s, the Livermore lightbulb’s ability to last seemingly forever is a smoking gun, at least in the eyes of some, pointing to the suspicion that companies are still limiting their bulb’s capabilities on purpose.
Even if the whole conspiracy is true, 118 years is still a little on the long side, I would think.
The town has a plan for the day the little bulb decides to retire: it will have a full funeral procession through town, ending at the historical society, where the bulb will rest in a place of honor.
There’s also talk of replacing the bulb with another exactly like it – there’s a willing party who has been keeping one on lockdown, and who may be willing to donate it when the time comes.
Or the bulb could just keep on burning.
Who knows? I mean…118 years and counting.
There’s a good chance it will outlive all of us.
