We often talk about which celebrity is
in the limelight and who is not. I have often wondered what 'lime'
has to do with 'light'. A lot! According to Bill Bryson's book, At
Home, in the early 1820s, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, an engineer and
inventor in Britain, heated a ball of lime
(calcium) no bigger than a marble using a flame from a rich blend of
oxygen and alcohol. It glowed with an intense white light, which
could be seen sixty miles away. The device, which was called Drummond
light (named after Gurney's fellow engineer Thomas Drummond who
popularised it), was successfully put to use in lighthouses. It was
also taken up by theatres because the light was perfect and steady,
and more importantly, it could be focussed into a beam and cast onto
selected performers. Thus, they were 'in the limelight'.
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