Everything about The Geordie Lamp totally explained
The
Geordie lamp was invented by
George Stephenson in 1815 as a solution to explosions due to
firedamp in
coal mines.
Although controversy arose between Stephenson's design and the
Davy lamp, (invented by
Humphry Davy in the same year), Stephenson's original design worked on significantly different principles. If the only way air could get to the
flame was restricted (a baseplate pierced by a number of small-bore
brass tubes was the usual way of doing this) and the lamp body above the flame lengthened, then the same amount of air could get to the flame, but would pass through the flow restriction at a velocity higher than the velocity of the flame in a mixture of
firedamp (mostly
methane) and air. This, then, prevented an
explosive backblast that might light the surrounding air.
Stephenson's design used glass to surround the flame, which cut out less of the light than Davy's, where the gauze surrounded it. But this also posed the danger of breakage in the harsh conditions of mineworking, which problem wasn't resolved until the invention of
safety glass. Stephenson tried several different designs in early years and later adopted Davy's gauze in preference to the tubes and it was this revised design that was used for most of the 19th century as the
Geordie lamp.
The name is possibly the route by which '
Geordie' became the familiar and affectionate
epithet for
Tynesiders, deriving from a diminutive form of the inventor's first name,
George.
Further Information
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