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rately, the efficiency at which the cost of operating the lamp is a minimum.
Taken in this latter sense, the maximum efficiency of a lamp is not its highest efficiency. As we increase the candle-power of a lamp its efficiency increases; consequently, by running the lamp high enough we can make its efficiency so high, that very little power is required to produce a given amount of light, and the cost of power to produce the light is very small. But, while the efficiency of the lamp increases, its life decreases, and if we run a lamp at too high an efficiency the saving in the cost of power is more than balanced by the increased cost of lamp renewals.
To determine the maximum efficiency for lamps under given conditions, we must determine the efficiency at which the sum of the costs of power and lamps is a minimum, and in order to do this w^e must know the rate of variation of the life of a lamp with its efficiency.
The curve. Fig. 2, shows this rate of variation. This curve is the result of
