Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Liquid crystals twist to gate a lamp behind the glass rather than glowing. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a movies & tv fact?

Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

An LCD picture is made by blocking light

Liquid crystals twist to gate a lamp behind the glass rather than glowing A liquid crystal display sandwiches a layer of rod-shaped molecules between polarising filters. Voltage makes the molecules twist and change how much light gets through each pixel, and colour filters add red, green and blue. The backlight does all of the glowing. It sits in Mondo's movies & tv collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

Technology trivia

More facts like this

OLED screens light each pixel on its ownThere is no backlight, so a black area draws almost no power Plasma screens lit tiny cells of gasEach cell held a gas mixture that glowed and excited a phosphor coating LCD displays control light passage using liquid crystals and polarizing filtersVoltage applied to liquid crystals rotates light polarization to create pixels Liquid crystals flow yet still bend lightRod shaped molecules keep a shared orientation while sliding past one another The first television remote was tied by a cableZenith's Lazy Bones hung off the set and could only switch it on or off Ultrasonic remotes gave us the word clickerZenith's handset struck aluminium rods that pinged at tones the set could hear

Tags: television, displays, lcd

An LCD picture is made by blocking light: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Liquid crystals twist to gate a lamp behind the glass rather than glowing. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a movies & tv fact?: Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.