Take a tour through the world of the light-emitting diode. Learn
- who invented it, how to use it, and how to make your own.
Collin Cunningham: People are fascinated by light. I mean just
glancing over at a display of flashing lights can grab my
attention. Do you ever remember sitting around a campfire?
Staring at the flames and just being totally transfixed, almost
like if you're watching TV. It's comforting, and it can even by
hypnotic. Recently, technology has made creating light a whole
lot easier to do. For that, we have this little guy to thank.
The light emitting diode, or LED for short.  LEDs have a lot of
different uses, from a simple power on indicator to traffic
signals. LEDs use about ten percent of the energy of a
traditional light bulb, and they can last about thirty times
longer. That makes them a pretty big hit with businesses looking
to do large scale visual communication.  The first person to
ever report the effects of a light emitting diode was
researching another form of communication. In