Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!strong
From: strong@tc.fluke.COM (Norm Strong)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Flashbulbs (was something stupid and illegal...)
Message-ID: <6731@fluke.COM>
Date: 25 Jan 89 20:58:40 GMT
References: <3835@midas.TEK.COM> <190700025@trsvax> <13355@cup.portal.com> <243@bnr-fos.UUCP> <13600@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 21

In article <13600@cup.portal.com> mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
}Well, I should have done this in the first place:  check to see if my "fact"
}was right.  A classic in the field, THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER'S HANDBOOK, was
}not ten feet away.
}
}Looking inside, I find, "They [flashbulbs] are filled with oxygen and a
}metallic aluminum filament in the form of crumpled foil, ribbon or wire.
}... They produce an intense white flash, the peak of which is about 3/100
}of a second."
} 
}And later, "In 1965 GE offered the M3 [flashbulb] with a rhenium igniter."
}
}As far as I know, the only rare earth which is common enough to be used in
}significant quantities in consumer products is cerium, which composes nearly
}half of the alloy used for liter flints (the other half is iron).
}
Not quite Kemo sabe!  Incandescent lamp filaments are about 2% rhenium.  It's
almost impossible to draw plain tungsten.
-- 

Norm   (strong@tc.fluke.com)