Edmund Germer
Edmund Germer (August 24, 1901 – August 10, 1987) was a German inventor granted as the father of the fluorescent lamp for which he deposited U.S. Patent No 2,182,732 in 1926 with Friedrich Meyer and Hans J. Spanner. It was later purchased by General Electrics, which also licenses his patent on the high-pressure mercury-vapor lamp.
The idea of coating the tube of an arc lamp emitting in the ultraviolet with fluorescing powder to transform UV into visible light led to the realization of arc discharge emitters with spectral quality competing with incandescent emitters. Prior to that, the unpleasant color of the emitted light made these lamps unfit for daily use, despite their much higher efficiency.
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Categories: 1901 births | 1987 deaths