Do household light bulbs contain a vacuum or some sort of gas at atmospheric pressure?

Answer 1

Regarding the suggestion to experiment with bulbs, don't mess with fluorescent bulbs. They contain mercury vapor which is poisonous and the fluorescent coating on the inside of the glass can also be toxic.

Answer 2

To answer this question, get a light bulb, a ZipLoc bag and enough water to fill the bag. Put the water in the bag and force the bulb into the water and seal the bag so no air is inside. Lay the bag on a hard surface (concrete outdoors so if it breaks ...) so the bulb is touching the surface and break the bulb with a blow of a hammer. If the bag doesn't tear, any gas inside the bag will have come from the bulb.
Testing a fluorescent bulb would be much harder.
In either case you should find almost no gas as a fairly good vacuum is pulled in each. You can see the thin melted tube used to pull the vacuum if you carefully take the base off a light bulb or the ends off a fluorescent.

Answer 3

Regular incandescent bulbs can be manufactured with either a vacuum or filled with a low-pressure noble gas, such as neon. Normally, a gas is used, as it maximises the bulb's lifetime due to less stress on both the filament and on the glass itself. Bulbs with vacuum's need to have stronger glass in order to prevent the bulb from imploding on contact, and therefore manufacturers often opt for the easier option of filling the bulb with gas.

Fluorescent tubes work on a different principle of light production, and are usually filled with mercury vapour along with a noble gas. Therefore, they do not have vacuum's within them either.

Answer 4

The household light bulb contain a gas called AURGON. If you are not sure about this cheque by opening the bulb.

Answer 5

They have inside a neutral gas mix (nitrogen, argon, halogen gas etc) at low pressure that breaks the filament to evaporate.