BALLAST RESISTOR........WHAT GIVES?

Great information on this thread. My first car was a 71 demon. The morning after I bought it, I cranked it and it fired and quit, fired and quit, fired and quit. My dad comes running over the hill from the garden and I can almost picture him yelling in that slowed down low yell..."S T O P I T' S Y O U R B A L L A S T R E S I S T O O O R !" I was like, "how in the heck can you troubleshoot a car from the other side of a hill?"

Anyways, I never understood before why it is called a "ballast" and didn't know about the current limining design of it. I mean, yeah I knew resistors change value with temperature, which is why you can't accurately measure a light bulb and predict the current through it at a given voltage but this is really interesting stuff. Thanks everyone.