page_title: Daniel McFarlan Moore
section_title: Miniature neon lamp
hierarchical_section_title: Daniel McFarlan Moore / Career / Miniature neon lamp
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Neonlamp (NE2) met gelijkstroom en wisselstroom English: Neon lamps (type NE2, 1.9 cm (0.75 in) long). The voltages across the lamps are left: DC (left lead positive), middle: DC (right lead positive), and right: AC.
context_page_description: Daniel McFarlan Moore was a U.S. electrical engineer and inventor. He developed a novel light source, the "Moore lamp", and a business that produced them in the early 1900s. The Moore lamp was the first commercially viable light-source based on gas discharges instead of incandescence; it was the predecessor to contemporary neon lighting and fluorescent lighting. In his later career Moore developed a miniature neon lamp that was extensively used in electronic displays, as well as vacuum tubes that were used in early television systems.
context_section_description: Moore's inventions at General Electric included a miniature neon lamp that remained a fixture in electronic displays throughout the twentieth century, and was a forerunner of plasma displays. Both the lamp and his further inventions were also important to the early development of television. In particular, around 1917 Moore developed a "negative glow" neon lamp. These were miniature lamps with a very different design than the much larger neon tubes used for neon lighting; a Smithsonian Institution website notes, "These small, low power devices use a physical principle called "coronal discharge." Moore mounted two electrodes close together in a bulb and added neon or argon gas. The electrodes would glow brightly in red or blue, depending on the gas, and the lamps lasted for years. Since the electrodes could take almost any shape imaginable, a popular application has been fanciful decorative lamps. Glow lamps found practical use as indicators in instrument panels and in many home appliances until the acceptance of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the 1970s." In 1924 he invented the vacuum bulbs used in what was at that time called "telephotography" (sending still pictures by electricity or radio), and in 1925 improved the invention for use in television.
  Moore was awarded the John Scott Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1911.
caption: Three miniature neon lamps; each is about 0.75 inches long. The voltages across the lamps are left: DC (left lead positive), middle: DC (right lead positive), and right: AC.
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