Blade Runner - 2nd Blog Story

12/21/2005

It was a good run, but how long did Thomas Edison think that his new invention the Incandescent Light would last? Since his 1879 filament test set in his Menlo Park (N.J.) laboratory, we have taken Edison s fragile light bulb for granted. Now, an accidental discover this past month by a graduate student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee could bust the bulb. Michael Bowers was trying to make "quantum dots," according to the Vanderbilt University Web site. The quantum dots are crystals only a few nanometers big (less than 1/1,000th the width of a human hair and containing 100 to 1,000 electrons).

Shining light or applying electricity to quantum dots produces a bright, colorful light, but Bowers shined a laser on the dots and produced a beautiful white glow.

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