GLOWUP

A brightly lumed dial in pitch-black darkness is equal parts joy and fascination, have you ever wondered where your Super-LumiNova comes from?

- DANIEL GOH

For all the precision, accuracy and reliability of a watch, it is rendered utterly useless in the absence of light. Unless, of course, the watch has the ability to glow in the dark. Before most displays were replaced with digital screens it was the analogue hands and indices that allowed most instruments to be read. Today we are obsessed with luminosity on our watches for many different reasons. Still, as with all of today's watchmaking innovations, there was once a time when it was fuelled by necessity. In this article, we look at the art of illumination on watches, from where it began to the industry standard Super-LumiNova of today and even perhaps a glimpse of what the future holds.

RADIUM GIRLS

The story of lume on watches starts with a tragedy. More specifically the tragedy of the Radium Girls. In the early days, glow-in-the-dark was achieved by using radioluminescent material. The luminescent paint was created using a natural isotope of radium mixed in with a phosphor. Invented by Sabin Arnold von Sochocky back in 1908, the idea here was to use the gamma rays emitted by the radium as it decays to react with the phosphor material to produce light.

As you would imagine, the ability to effectively ‘paint light’ on things that needed illumination found use in a variety of industries, including the military kind. Radium was subsequently used not just on watches but also on tools like compasses and aircraft instruments. The story of the Radium Girls is also linked with military connotations as it was at the onset of the First World War that in America, many women were hired to paint radium dials in factories across the country.