In fact, technology and materials like this have been around for much longer than you think, and they are not exclusively for the high fliers of society. Anyone who wears a digital watch is using technology that was inconceivable only 20 years ago! The technology I will be touching on today is the LCD or Liquid Crystal Display. An unsung hero in today's technological world, it makes many of the devices we use today light up with colour. The LCD stretches right across the spectrum when it comes to performance versus durability. On the one hand you have the huge LCD Displays the make up modern Televisions and Monitors; but on the other hand you have the small LCD's that are wrapped around your wrist, making up the heart of your digital timekeeper or pager (not that anyone uses that any more!). The vibrant colour of the Television is something that many people marvel at, it gets the respect it so rightfully deserves. But I feel that the little powerhouse that sits on your wrist or in your pocket day in and day it is overlooked and left out. People don't respect it for what it really is.
It is simply fantastic that your digital watch can run for so long, I have a Casio watch that can run for 8+ Years. So what you might say, its not that long, my car lasts for that long. But stop. Think about it for just a minute. Your car doesn't tick every second. It's not on all the time. But your watch is. 8 Years is a long time; to be exact it's 104 months or 248,832,000 seconds flat. Day in day out, every second. Even when your asleep, its on. Putting aside the fact that it has to count the time for that amount of time, think about the display in your watch. It updates every second, that means that in it's lifetime it will perform on average 248,832,000 different operations, and it fits in the palm of your hand. It astounds me that in this day and age, we have the technology to do that. Its beautiful, there's no other word for it.
In the next few days I will be posting about how the LCD works, so stay tuned for that! But what I would say is that, just for a moment in your day, stop and think about the technology you use and the effort that went into making it. And really, just how fascinating it is...
Sam