Vasile Surducan wrote:
> Conclusion: the porosity of the
> bulb's glass allows bidirectional gas/fluid transfer.

How do you know it's not the seals?  That sounds more likely to me, although
I don't have any direct knowledge one way or the other.

Amusing side story:  A group of us in high school did a bunch of pranks.
One of them was to take a few bulbs from a particular room, and carefully
file a tiny hole in the glass close to where it meets the screw base.  We
then carefully heated the bulbs, then dunked the end in water.  As the air
inside shrunk as it cooled, some water was sucked in.  We then put the bulbs
back, which hung from the ceiling with the glass down and screw base up.
The bulbs worked fine for a while, and eventually someone noticed the water.
We floated the "explanation" that there had been a flood, and surprisingly
people were a bit dumbfounded but then accepted the explanation.  Nobody
stopped to think about it, since the high school was on a hill and this room
was on the fourth floor.  Eventually the bulbs we modified burnt out, much
quicker than normal and everyone apparently forgot all about it when they
were replaced.  Moral of the story: People are stupid and are easily led
around like sheep with a little imagination.


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