Light dimming is based on adjusting the voltage which gets to the lamp. Light dimming has been possible for many decades by using adjustable power resistors and adjustable transformers. A light dimmer works by essentially chopping parts out of the AC voltage. This allows only parts of the waveform to pass to the lamp. The brightness of the lamp is determined by the power transferred to it, so the more the waveform is chopped, the more it dims. Solid-state light dimmers work by varying the “duty cycle” (on/off time) of the full AC voltage that is applied to the lights being controlled. For example, if the voltage is applied for only half of each AC cycle, the light bulb will appear to be much less bright than when it get the full AC voltage, because it get’s less power to heat the filament. Solid-state dimmers use the brightness knob setting to determine at what point in each voltage cycle to switch the light on and off. Typical light dimmers are built using thyristors and the exact tim...