No, standard in the US is 120 v (volts). Watts would be something like 40, 60, 75, or 100. I don’t think there are any 120 v, 120 watt bulbs.
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120 Volt bulb is probbly a thing also
I hadn’t thought about those in a while. I think people use mostly plastic now.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that, from the transistor in your avatar, your main focus must be in DC… 
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You’re saying they should wind it into an air-core inductor and build a boost converter with it, then manually make and break the circuit thousands of times per second to boost the voltage? Wouldn’t they at least need some capacitance too?
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Not saying it’s a perfect (or even marginally good) solution (and it will require a shitload of wire) just that you could do something to boost the voltage with a minimum of parts and some creativity.
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Oh! I assumed you were joking before. Yeah, no, it’s pretty difficult to get 120V from a 1.5V cell just using wire. I’d say “impossible” but I guess MacGyver might be able to rig some kind of commutator based on harmonica technology or something.
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This is from a video called A Private Universe, by Phil Sadler of Harvard Smithsonian Observatory. It isn’t the only example of odd scientific reasoning in the film.
And no, students today aren’t better. I know because I can still use this problem in physics labs. They are lacking the same understanding that the Harvard grads are lacking: they don’t know that a complete circuit is needed, and they don’t know what is inside a light bulb. Hint: the screw threads are not there just to hold the bulb in the socket.
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Ha! It’s good to hear from our good friends in Boristan.
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Like what?
I remember having my sister ask me incredulously “Where did you learn to do that?” while I was wiring a pendant lamp for the dining room. I jokingly said that I learned it in my ivy league EE classes, but the funny thing is I really didn’t ever learn anything so practical getting my BSEE. I still find that I wish I had more training in how to make solid low resistance connections since that is almost always the failure point when I build hobby electronics.
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I do remember meeting a recent MIT CS grad who had absolutely no idea that monitors had R, G, and B for each pixel.
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I worked with Dr. Sadler in the 90s, and I’m familiar with these videos he created. First I believe these are not MIT grads but Harvard grads. This is based on the buildings in the background from the student interviews.
Second this is similar to another set of videos he did asking Harvard graduates to explain phases of the moon and seasons with similar levels of failure.
Fundamentally these videos were meant to show the poor level of scientific education in our colleges. My guess is students would perform just as poorly these days.
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In my experience, there are two types of engineering students. There are the ones who tinkered with everything as kids, and took their dad’s lawnmower apart and put it back together, and then there are the bookworms who were really good in math and science classes in primary and secondary school. Both of these types of students are encouraged to study engineering. I don’t think most university engineering programs teach much of the basic “here’s how this simple device you use everyday works” stuff. They teach theory. I was the bookworm type. When I got my BS in Aerospace Engineering, I probably would have failed this lightbulb challenge. My first job out of college was at a small manufacturer of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment, so I had to learn quickly. I suspect many recent engineering grads would still fail this challenge. It’s ok. They’ll figure it out when they start working, and if their first job is designing aircraft, their work will be check. This video does not surprise me. It also doesn’t worry me.
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I’ve seen incandescent flood light bulbs in 120 watts and regular old incandescent bulbs as high as 200watts.
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Yeah, I don’t know who these people are, but the location is definitely Harvard Yard, or a close twin. There’s no architecture like that to speak of on the MIT campus.
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who needs a battery?
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120V bulb? I’m not sure. It looks like a bayonet base to me. These are always low voltage bulbs in my experience.
Having said that, I’ve also never seen such a large bulb which was intended to light at only 1.5V, but maybe they’d get a bit of glow from a single alkaline cell.
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Right. You’ll need an EE degree to understand a light bulb. I mean, if you give them the weekend and access to the library, they could have built a motor. But to expect the non EE grad to understand how to connect a light bulb is just asking too much.
Except that not what I said at all.
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