Lime light

Limelight is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, someone in the public eye is still said to be "in the limelight". An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of lime, which can be raised to white heat without melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence[citation needed].

The effect was discovered in the 1820s by Goldsworthy Gurney (1793-1875), who invented and patented the "oxy-hydrogen blowpipe". DISCOPUB. In 1825, a Scottish engineer, Thomas Drummond (1797-1840), saw a demonstration of the effect by Michael Faraday and realised that the light would be useful for surveying. Drummond built a working version in 1826, and the light is sometimes known as the Drummond Light after him.

Limelight was first used in public in the Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1837 and enjoyed widespread use in theatres around the world in the 1860s and 1870s. Limelights were employed to highlight solo performers in the same manner as modern followspots. To this day, theatre followspots are referred to as limes. Limelight was quickly replaced by electric arc lighting in the late 19th century.