nPosted October 7, 2019
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nThey weren’t the first to invent LED lights. Red ones had been created in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and green LEDs were created after that…
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nAnd then, finally – in the late 1980s – Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura invented blue colored LEDs. This discovery finally allowed people to create white LEDs, because a bright blue LED beneath a yellow translucent covering makes a beautiful, warm white light.
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nIf all LEDs were still red, we’d use them a lot less, wouldn’t we???
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nOn this date in 2014, the three Japanese physicists won a Nobel Prize for their technological development.
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nSo…what’s the big deal?
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nLEDs are extremely efficient, long-lasting, and can be used without access to a power grid. They don’t get hot, they save energy, and ultimately they save a lot of money.
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nMany of us in the developed world are switching out all our incandescent bulbs – and certainly our horrible (and mercury poisoning!) fluorescent bulbs – yuck! – to LED light bulbs. As a matter of fact, many of us already did so a long time ago and have been saving power and money for a while now!
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nAnd LED lights are used in almost every electronic device – we don’t really know or notice all the LEDs surrounding us.
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nNow, if we can just switch over from wood-burning and other greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies to LED lighting in the developing world – well, that would be awesome for everyone!
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nCheck out this and this video about LEDs. And here is an article, complete with diagrams and a video, about how Light Emitting Diodes work.
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nBirthdays of musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Toni Braxton
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nYou Matter to Me Day
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nAnniversary of the “discovery” of Catalina Island
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nPhysicist Niels Bohr’s birthday
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nAnniversary of the invention of the bar code
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nMerchant Holiday in Antigua and Barbuda
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nGreat Books Week
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n(First full week of October)
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nMystery Series Week
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n(First full week of October)
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