When consulting manuals, electricians, online sources, etc., they always instruct you to handle halogen light bulbs with gloves.
The "explanation" that usually accompanies this statement is that oils and salts from a bare hand can "react" with the surrounding glass/quartz, owing to the fact that halogen bulbs are much hotter than ordinary ones. These reactions would cause weak spots in the quartz (or in some versions of the story, the filament), decreasing the lifetime of the bulb.
Is there any merit to this explanation? What are then the precise mechanisms involved in the bulb's degradation when the bulb is touched by a dirty monkey finger?
