Liquid Crystal Display.(LCD); Invention

Liquid Asset: It all began with a carrot. In 1888, an Austrian botanist named Friedrich Reinitzer discovered liquid crystals (strictly speaking, not crystals at all, but liquids whose molecules scatter light the same way crystals do) in cholesterol he had extracted from carrots. But it took George Heilmeier and a group of fellow scientists at RCA’s David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton to envision the use of those crystals in wristwatch and other displays, and to produce the world’s first LCD in 1968. Heilmeier went on to earn fifteen patents; help develop stealth aircraft, lasers, and artificial intelligence for the Department of Defense; and head New Jersey-based Bellcore (formerly Bell Communications Research). But he remains best known as the man who enabled us to spell hello on a calculator.