Secondary effects

An incandescent light bulb is a pretty darn good heater. It consumes electricity and emanates heat and does a decent job of it. It is not quite perfectly efficient, however: some of the energy used, albeit a small fraction, is wasted as photons. [*]

Interestingly, it is the secondary effect of waste light that is used to market, package, and promote the use of the bulbs. [**]

I contend that window-mounted, floor-standing, and portable fans are similarly promoted according to secondary effects. As an afterthought, they induce air currents. But their primary function, if you ask me, is to pump tremendous amounts of white noise into the environment, at precisely those few remaining frequencies where a middle-aged man’s hearing still has, or had, a fighting chance. In other words, they are deafness engines.

There are eight currently operating in my house. Not counting the compressors in the refrigerator and dehumidifier.

It would take a supercomputer and room full of fluid-dynamics PhD’s to figure out the net effect of all of them with respect to currents and cooling.

In the mean time: What? What?

— Frenulum

[*] By the way: when the idiotic nanny-state no-incandescent federal laws take hold, I will actually start to use more energy, because my hazmat CFL lights won’t produce the heat I rely on, and I will have to crank the furnace higher. Make sense to you? No, me either.

Didn’t mean to rant here, but really.

[**] Unless you buy an Easy-Bake oven, that is.