“So, what is your hypothesis for how fluorescent light bulbs work?”
I haven’t thought about it until you mentioned it. Is a fourth state of matter the only possible explanation? I will look into it.
Ylem is a proposed fifth state of matter that occured in and around the time of the Big Bang.
Well, there are only a very few ways we know to produce light (photons). One of them is black body radiation, which is how incandescent light bulbs work. However, there is no filament or other similar body in the tube of a fluorescent bulb, so that method is ruled out. Another is combustion, but nothing in the fluorescent tube is burning, so that method is ruled out. Radioactive decay can also produce photons, but there is no significant amount of radioactive isotopes in a fluorescent bulb, so again, that is ruled out. Another method is stimulated emission, but that would require an already existing source of photons, which the fluorescent bulb lacks, so that must also be ruled out.
Which leaves (as far as I can think), only the method of plasma induced into the “glow discharge” state. All of the elements required for that ARE present in the fluorescent bulb, so it seems to me to be the only possible explanation for those bulbs which can’t be excluded.
It is the scientifically accepted explanation.
Have you heard of a plasma torch? They also exist.