Does a 100 watt bulb put out more light than a 25 watt bulb?

Answer 1

The higher the rated wattage of the bulb, the greater the luminous efficacy, which means you get more lumens per watt using a 120-watt bulb than using two 60-watt bulbs.

Check the lumen ratings for the two 60 watt bulbs, and compare it with the lumen rating for the 120 watt bulb. That should give you the answer you seek. The 60 watt bulbs may give off a light that is more yellow than the 120 watt.

A More Accurate

It depends upon the type of light bulbs used, and what you mean by "light". Incandescent light bulbs are very efficient at converting electricity into light, but unfortunately they emit most of that light in the infrared band, which humans cannot see. Therefore, we describe incandescent bulbs as being inefficient in terms of converting electricity into visible light.

Generally, higher wattage incandescent light bulbs operate at higher temperatures, and they therefore emit a greater proportion of the light in the visible spectrum. Consequently it is common to say a 120 watt bulb emits more than twice the light of a 60 watt bulb. In truth, a 120 watt bulb emits almost exactly double the luminescent energy of a 60 watt bulb, but because the 120 watt emits a greater proportion of its energy in the visible spectrum, it is common to claim that the 120 watt bulb emits more than double the light of a 60 watt bulb.

The situation changes considerably when talking about fluorescent and LED bulbs, which emit the majority of their luminescent energy in the visible spectrum. That is why they are so popular, because they use much less electrical energy to emit the same amount of visible light, compared to incandescent light bulbs. As a general rule, a 120 watt fluorescent or LED bulb will emit about twice the visible light as a 60 watt bulb.

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Watts is not a unit of light, but of power consumption. However, many people are familiar with the amount of light emitted from an incandescent lamp (bulb) of a given wattage, so that has become an unofficial way of expressing brightness. Many compact fluorescent packages are labeled with the incandescent wattage giving a similar light output.

Answer 2

The lumens per watt in a CFL are higher than an incandescent bulb. That is why people are switching from incan to CFL. For about 30% of the wattage you get the same amount or a little more lumens out of a CFL. For a 100 watt Incandescent you can put in a 23-27 watt CFL and have the same amount of lumens. They take a couple of minutes to warm up though and will seem dim for a short time.

Hope this helps, I have my degree in facilities management and am an energy analyst professionally, I get these questions all the time.

Answer 3

You can either:

1) Subtract the two powers, to see the difference in power

2) Divide the two powers, to get the ratio

Please note that "watt" is not a unit of energy, but a unit of power. For example, 100 watts means the light bulb uses 100 joules/second when it is on; where joules is a unit of energy.

Answer

As power is the rate at which a lamp uses energy, a 50-W lamp will use half the energy used by a 100-W lamp over the same period of time.

Answer 4

"50 watts" means 50 joules of energy every second.

"100 watts" means 100 joules of energy every second.

In equal lengths of time, the 100-watt device uses

twice as much energy as the 50-watt device does.

Answer 5

100 watts is double the rate of energy consumption compared to 50 watts.

In any given period of time during which both are shining, the 100-watter

consumes double the amount of energy compared to its dim companion.

Answer 6

Probably a little less, since the surface area of the glass envelope is twice as large, so some extra wattage is lost as heat (without making light first). Very minor effect.

Answer 7

If both are incandescent bulbs, a 100 watt bulb puts out more light than a 25 watt bulb.

Answer 8

Tungsten bulbs generally become more efficient at producing light as the wattage is raised. So, generally, a 100W bulb will be a little brighter than two 50W bulbs.

Answer 9

You would need to know the rated lumens for each wattage bulb and compare that way.