LCD – Liquid crystal: an oxymoron?
Liquid crystal is not an oxymoron. Know what it is? Have you ever wondered how it works? There are liquid crystal displays or LCDs in almost every electronic device that requires a screen: watches, computers, clocks, you name it.
So what they do is put liquid crystal between two sheets of polarizing metal, then run an electrical current through it so that the crystals line up and light can’t get through. Each glass is open or closed. That is, the light passes or it does not pass. They say it works like a shutter to open and close. Electricity is what makes it open or close.
There is a great website called How Stuff Works. I use it when I have questions about how things like LCD screens work. The link to LCD information is http://www.howstuffworks.com/lcd.htm. There are several articles there, but I’ll give you some basics that I learned here and you can do some more research if you’re interested.
If you read all the information on http://www.howstuffworks.com you will find out how to make your own LCD screen. That’s a bit more than I want to do, but it’s interesting. Maybe reading it will give you new ideas on how to improve the technology if that’s your thing. Or maybe you just want to get a general idea and that’s it.
Science is always finding new ways to play with light and matter to show us what we want, whether it’s the time, the words in your word processor, or something we haven’t even thought about yet. Studying current technology usually leads someone to improve it. This is how we progress. You take what you have, usually combining things in new ways, and put them together differently to come up with something that works even better than the last idea.
I’m so glad there are people doing that. It sure makes my life easier!
