The Color of the Night is Changing
There is a silent change happening in the world. The kind that only people with too much time on their hands notice, or those that have insomnia and are prone to late night walks.
It is the kind of change that probably only matters to people who want to win Oscars for period films, or those interested in the slow regard of silent things (thanks Mr. Rothfus for that sting of words). It is for those people and myself that I feel I must document this change in my own meager ways.
You see, the color of the night is changing.
You might say, “The night is always different!”, and you would be right. Cloud cover, light pollution, and your neighborhoods particular foliage can all contribute to the hues and shades of any street’s appearance at night. This being said, what I am talking about is far more objective, so we don’t have to argue about subjectivity. All you have to do is stand on a street between an older neighborhood and a new one. One will be orange, the other blue.
This happened to me one particular night after a single street lamp burnt out the week before. After the ever responsible men and women of Public Works changed the bulb in the old burnt out street lamp, it was set apart from its counterparts, shining a steady LED white-blue in a sea of burnt orange.
You see, for the last 100 years or so, the vast majority of light bulbs were made of tungsten. This element puts out a very particular light. Think back on late bike rides with friends before dinner time, or deserted basketball courts in the middle of the night. If these memories were made before, lets say, 2010, there is a good chance they have an orange hue all about them. You have tungsten to thank for that!
LEDs on the other hand can emit just about any light we want. Some Project Manager in their infinite wisdom, or perhaps a City Council, decided that their Light Emitting Diode of choice would be one closer to daylight (or your phones back light color). Now, as each old timer street light goes out, it is replaced with a blue-white LED replacement. Eventually, all the tungsten bulbs will be gone and the street lights will be all one tribe again.
Again, this is a slow and silent change, and one with little consequence to the majority of the world, but is significant nonetheless. When you consider that fire light and lamp light also burn orange, and we have lit the night with those items for far longer than tungsten, you will appreciate a bit further just how strange and new a blue night is to the human eye. Perhaps some neuroscientist will find that blue hues affect sleep in ways we couldn’t predict, or maybe the greater visibility will stop some crime. Regardless, I am simply concerned with change that I have yet to find another person noticing. Maybe you have, and as you read this, think I am a hack. If that is the case, we should probably have coffee to laugh about it.
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