On Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:39:56 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 10/17/2010 6:05 PM zzzzzzzzzz spake thus:

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010 17:12:23 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

So what's your answer? I'm still not sure, but it seems to me that
incandescents are more "efficient" in that way--in other words,
more of their energy gets converted to heat than light,
proportionally, compared with CFLs. Right?

No, all energy use results in heat; 100W in = 100W out. When the light
strikes an object, that which doesn't get reflected heats the object.

Well, dang it, I guess I gotta admit you're right. All the energy will
(eventually) be converted to heat, once the light rays stop bouncing
around and are absorbed.

I guess the most one can say is there may be a difference in how the
heat is *distributed* between CFLs and incandescents, since the
incandescent will (initially) produce more of its energy as heat.

At 300000000m/s it takes a *large* box for it to ricochet around in there for
very long.