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The flicker fusion threshold is often said to be about $60\,\mathrm{Hz}$ for humans, meaning that humans tend to perceive cycling events happening faster than 60-times-per-second as a blur rather than as a discrete set of motions.

Obviously light bulbs tend to have a flicker rate faster than $60\,\mathrm{Hz}$ such that they don't look like strobe lights to humans, though I'm concerned about the comfort of other animals, e.g. falcons, who may have a faster flicker fusion threshold than humans.

Question: For the layperson who knows nothing of this beyond the basic light spectrum, how would I find out the flicker rate of different kinds of light bulbs?

Nat
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Nicole Inman
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  • Related: "What invisible flicker do different types of light bulbs have?". – Nat May 05 '18 at 03:26
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    All light bulbs flash at mains frequency (50/60 Hz), except LEDs which flicker MUCH faster (kHz or MHz). Incandescents have high thermal inertia, so their flicker is almost invisible. – hdhondt May 05 '18 at 04:02
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    @hdhondt, 2x mains, so 100 or 120 Hz. – The Photon May 05 '18 at 04:24
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    Like 'hdhondt" wrote, incandescent light bulbs effectively have thermal inertia which smoothes out temperature variations when the current is rapidly changed. In fact, if you turn off an incandescent light bulb, the rate at which the filament cools down and gradually decreases its light output can often be seen with the naked eye. –  May 05 '18 at 04:56
  • @The Photon Good point, my bad – hdhondt May 05 '18 at 09:50
  • So if I'm understanding this correctly then a incandescent light bulb would probably be the best bulb used for a falcon as it has the highest chance of being a constant light source for their eye vs the strobe effect, correct? – Nicole Inman May 06 '18 at 06:28

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