nautical history friends help

placesandpalaces:

focsle:

nothwell:

focsle:

nothwell:

there’s a glass thing aboard wooden whaling ships where it’s like a little crystal they put in the ceiling to let light in belowdecks

what the fuck is it called

it looks kind of like this

???

Deck prism!

#they’re so amazing

YES! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Sure thing! I remember being so surprised at HOW much light they brought into a space, when I first saw them in action.

[ID: photo of closely clustered ship bunks, lit by an overhead prism. /end ID]

The yellow light is artificial but the blue is from the deck prism, on a cloudy day.

The group Liter of Light helps light the homes of impoverished people around the world with a similar invention: a clear plastic bottle containing a liter of water and three milliliters of bleach. They’re placed in the roof of the home much like the deck prism and “refract the light from outdoors into the house, lighting up much like a light bulb.” They can be used to replace kerosene lamps, which are both a fire and fume hazard.

Since the bottle only works with sunlight, Liter of Light came up with a solution for night time. Huffington Post stated, “by slipping a test tube with a small LED light bulb into the bottle, which in turn is hooked up to a mini-solar panel, the bottle can still refract light during the day, but then also be used as a light bulb at night.” They also make streetlights!