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What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations? (pawb.social)

submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

311 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Considering LEDs are so good at producing a very tight wavelength, I wonder if this could be replicated with more energy efficient lamps.

Or if non visible spectrum lights can be used to make similar alpha channel masks that don't affect lighting the scene.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

A laser, maybe, but definitely not LEDs. Vapor/gas lamps produce the narrowest frequency bands possible, because it comes from very well defined atomic transitions (Hz range). LEDs produce frequency bands with widths in the GHz/THz range, while semiconductor lasers can maybe reach KHz if they are really good. So, unfortunately, for this type of applications, vapor lamps would probably still be needed.

Source: I work with lasers and spectroscopy.

Edit: very good idea about using non-visible light!