Your theory on the light bulb mystery

So you buy a pack of, say, 2 light bulbs for a lamp that takes two bulbs...

Time passes into, say, months, and you notice one of the bulbs blew out when you turned the lamp on... But! The other buld is still working fine... Infact it's into, say, the next week and that other bulb is still working fine...

So the question is:

If you put two of the same light bulbs from the same packaging in (implying same name brand and surely the same made batch), how is it they dont both blow out the same exact time?

Let me hear your theory.

This blowing out at different time stuff, after you know you put em in the same time from the get go, sure gives the whole having to be running back and forth, changing light bulds instead of getting it handled all together one time. It's so now out of order that you sure can bet the next times it'll be out of order into forever as long as you have lighting sockets that work off the same turn on switch.

You must have a lot of spare time on your hands to be thinking about this sort of thing.

Let me throw something you may not have thought of at you, Whenever you turn your light on, power travels from the switch to the bulb. Now what if when the power travels to the bulb, one of the globes gets slightly more power than the other? It will make the filament burn out sooner.

What if the percentage of gas in the bulb is slightly lower than the other one?

Seriously there are many, many variables that will contribute to why one bulb lasts longer than another.

that's sort of like asking why sometimes you buy a part for a computer that doesn't work out of the box while other parts fail after a month and yet others from the same brand and model last for years

like in the above post, there are too many variables ranging from imperfections or variances in the individual bulbs, if one bulb is used more than the other and even how much power is supplied in what amount and frequency from your power company.

if you are going through light bulbs often, i could recommend either buying a more premium brand bulb or replacing them all with energy efficient bulbs, as they have a longer average life

sounds like you may have alot of power surges from where you are. i have them all the time at work but i have alot of backup generators inline for when they strike. big surge protectors really.

Chop it up to quantum randomness, but no two snowflakes are alike. on a more exact scale, the same can be said for light bulbs. and people. and threads. and life.

Those filimants can be delicate, if one is jostled during production or shipping or when you get it home, it may burn out before the other.

nevermind
misread the question

[edit on 16-10-2008 by Phage]

Assuming exact packaging protocol, material content & environment till the exact moment installation is completed:

The slight jolt of when you grab the light to turn it on might resonate more on one bulb than the other causing uneven wear, as well as your direction of approach to the light and the draft / cooling you might cause by moving in its vicinity?

Otherwise:
Quality control, bumping in transport & handling during install.

You could do like the maintenance crews who are responsible for keeping traffic lights going, and replace all the bulbs on a schedule. That's why you don't see many burned out traffic lights. If you are in the US, you could actually use the same 130 volt bulbs that are used in traffic lights. They last a long time at 120 volts, but they are less efficient. My house has all fluorescents, mostly the compact type, and I've had to replace two or so in eight years. They paid for themselves in the first year or two.

Many newer traffic lights use LEDs, which saves the local governments lots of money on electricity. You can get LED "bulbs" for your house, but it's hard to beat compact fluorescents for efficiency and low price.

One was actually a dark sucker. It sucked as much darkness as it could.