HID bulbs without ballast?

I'm not an electrician. I only have the usual high school physics knowledge.

My question is, can you simply screw in a HID bulb in a normal fixture and plug that thing directly to the outlet? Is the ballast really necessary?

I do use a ballast, but the curiosity got the better of me, yet I don't wanna burn/destroy my bulb by simply using it without a ballast in order to find out. I prefer to wait for an answer.

Would, if it does work, the lumen output of the bulb suffer from using it without a ballast? I can suppose that the life of the bulb will be decreased.

It won't work I'm afraid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_ballast

need ballast

Thanks for the info guys. Case closed.