How Stuff Works

 

 

By Michael Nettleton

I’m no dummy.

No, this not a debate topic. (Sit down, Carolyn.)

But I’d be the first to admit . . . (Carolyn waving hand frantically to get my attention.) Okay, okay, I’d be the second to admit that figuring out technical and mechanical stuff is not my strength.

It took only about fifteen minutes of my freshman calculus class to send me skittering to another building to relaunch my scholastic career as a liberal arts major. I may not handle multi-level equations very well, but I can analyze the crap out of Shakespeare. You need to know how not to bump into the furniture on stage? I’m your guy. Great Hadron Collider or how to fix venetian blinds? Not so much.

Once, while working as a substitute librarian, I was shelving books in the science section. My eye fell upon a soft-covered volume called Quantum Physics for Dummies. I scooped it onto my soon-to-be empty cart and took it to the front desk, bravely entered my library card number, and checked that puppy out. How hard could it be? This book would lay QP out step-by-step. I felt my inner Stephen Hawking rising to the challenge. I could even swallow my pride and overlook the For Dummies part of the title. (Reference opening sentence.)

Later, at home, having spent a quality two hours trying to make my way through the opening chapter, my loving life partner Carolyn tapped me on the shoulder.

“You want I should call and have them bring the Jaws-of-Life?” She queried.

At that point, all I could produce, vocally, was a pathetic mewling that might have contained the words ”what?” and “for?”

“To twist your head around and get it facing the right direction on your shoulders,” she said, trying her best not to smirk.

Which brings us to LED lighting.

Recently, we had a fluorescent light in the garage flicker, then give up the ghost. Now I kinda-sorta understand how fluorescent lights work. A fluorescent lamp generates light from collisions in a hot gas ('plasma') of free accelerated electrons with atoms. Simple, yes? Okay, okay, I looked it up. But I’m within the general area code of understanding it.

Carolyn decided to replace the gassy/lighty thinggummy with an LED fixture. More energy efficient, longer lasting, better for the environment and blah, blah, blah.

 She had our neighbor Mr. Tool Belt install it, and it worked great. In fact, it was so bright, the first time she turned it on my immediate reaction was to yell “I’ll buy the negatives.” (If you’re younger than say, 45, there’s no chance you’ll get the joke. Unless you’re a fan of noir movies.)

Later, we were talking about our new light source and both admitted we had no idea how LEDs work. The odds of me not knowing something Carolyn also doesn’t know are astronomical. Right up there with picking 6 winning lottery numbers. This called for a drink and a quick trip to Wikipedia. Here’s what it says:

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor light source that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons.

“Electron holes. Photons. See, that would have been my guess.” I nodded.

“Ly-uhhh!!!” Carolyn crowed. “And what’s your definition of a photon?”

“It’s . . . err . . . um . . . A facsimile you use when you can’t afford a real tawn.”

“Brepppp!” She hit the B.S. buzzer. “What else does it say?”

The attainment of high efficiency blue LEDs was quickly followed by the development of the first white LED. In this device a Y₃Al₅O₁₂:Ce (known as "YAG" or Ce:YAG phosphor) cerium-doped phosphor coating produces yellow light through fluorescence. The combination of that yellow with remaining blue light appears white to the eye. 

“Oooh-kay! Of course,” I tried to sound assured. “Now it’s perfectly clear.”

“Breppppp!” Carolyn hammered the buzzer a second time. “Tell you what.”

“What?”

“How about we settle on a simple one-word explanation?”

Sensing my chance to stop dangling in the wind, I nodded. “Sounds good to me. What do you suggest?”

“I was thinking magic. We just agree it’s magic and move on.”

“You are the brains of the operation, aren’t you?”

She beamed. “I do my best. Do you have anything to add?”

“Well, there’s this. If you plow into the couch on stage and tumble ass-over-teakettle on top of the people sitting on it, stay in character and pretend you did it on purpose. The audience will never know.”