Green Light for Green Light, not Blue

I had not replaced my Edison style incandescent light bulbs. The CFL bulbs were too blue, and they can disrupt your sleep cycle. Your melatonin is disrupted by light that is more blue than yellow. Google it.

Then I found a bulb with light the same color as incandescent bulbs. They are made by N-Vision, and sold at Home Depot. In Virginia the CFL bulbs sold at Home Depot are subsidized by the power company. They have 3 colors: Daylight, Bright White, and Soft White. This is misleading.

Science: The color temperature is a number that describes the color of light. It is based on the fact that as things get hotter, they glow, and the peak wavelength gets bluer with higher temperature. An object with no color of its own to distort the radiated light is called a black body radiator.

Normal incandescent bulbs produce light with a color temperature of around 3500° K. That means that a black body at a temperature of 3500° K (That is Celcius degrees but based on absolute zero) would make light with a similar proportion of wavelengths and therefore color.

The N-Vision bulbs are made to produce light at three different color temperatures. The Daylight type is around 5500°K (similar to noon sunlight), and the Soft White is at around 3500°K. The Bright White is around 4200°K.

So now my home is filled with these bulbs, saving lost of energy this summer. That is Green, the common term for ecologically friendly. The light is not green, nor blue, but slightly orange.