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Jul 5, 2024 · The thundering “Limelight” stood out as one of the songs from that record that helped the band reach new levels of exposure, which is ironic because it betrayed one band member’s issues...
- Jim Beviglia
- 4 min
- Contributor
Dec 2, 2015 · When Gurney heated calcium oxide in the flame it produced an intense white light, dubbed limelight. A Scottish military engineer, Thomas Drummond, learned about Gurney’s work and around the...
- Elizabeth Nix
Nov 11, 2013 · Today it means “at the centre of attention,” but back in the day “in the limelight” meant, well, being in the limelight. “Limelight,” which is also known as “calcium light,” was used as stage lighting for years after being discovered by Goldsworth Gurney in the 1820s.
Originally a limelight was a bright, incandescent lamp invented by the Englishman Thomas Drummond in 1816. At that time, the British government was trying to survey Ireland.
Limelight was invented in 1816 by Thomas Drummond but wasn't adopted widely for use in theaters until the 1860s. (Drummond wanted his invention to provide safety to boats traveling dark shorelines, but limelight proved to be too expensive and dangerous for lighthouse use.)
In the early days of theater, a limelight was a device used to brightly illuminate the front of a stage, which put the main performer in a spotlight. The light was made by focusing a flame at a cylinder filled with lime that was projected through a lens - lighting technicians had to be creative before electricity.
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Limelight is an intense white light which is produced by heating a piece of lime in a flame of burning oxygen and hydrogen. The effect was discovered in the 1820s by Goldsworthy Gurney and the application of the process to create a bright light was developed by Thomas Drummond around 1825.
