Overweight electrons

In sci.physics, Rbdium

wrote on Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:38:26 GMT :

More likely the battery resistance decreased as the ions therein shifted around a bit. No electron dieting and/or bulking up necessary. :-) I'd have to do some research on that.

There is also the elementary point that someone else (your SO? your children? a passing fiend sporting a moustache and wearing a trenchcoat with pockets full of replacement dry cells? :-) ) may have changed out the batteries.

Contacts get dirty and the resistance goes up.

A small jolt, as in picking it up, causes movement which breaks through the crud and the light brightens.

You're sober today and it just looks brighter.

Yes, a majority of American electrons is overweight, and a third or fourth of them is obese. Now that China's economy is developing and people can afford to eat something besides rice, more Chinese electrons are gaining weight. Was this an imported flashlight?

When you first switched it on the electrons were probably not very experienced in running a torch - maybe they had been used to run a motor or a radio of something like that.

However, once they learned how fast they needed to go, and how many of them could fit in the globes filament, they were able to work much more efficiently, and thus make the globe glow brighter.

Another factor is that after a while they realsied they just didn't have enough 'go' and so they stopped trying to jump the contacts on the on/off switch when they felt like a run

Cheers

Mr X (I am not putt> I have this flashlight and it is now brighter and I changed nothing.

I think more likely the common-enough variations in human vision!

Best example - how bright does the flashlight look in a sunlit parking lot? How bright does the flashlight look when it is the main light source in your bedroom at 4 AM?

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

In sci.physics, Don Klipstein

wrote >>In sci.physics, Rbdium

Actually, I think another poster has already hit upon the solution: dirty contacts. But your explanation also works, and one can also try to figure out how bright the flashlight seems to be after directing the beam into one's eyes for a moment. (Especially if the other eye is closed.)