Question: how does the light come from the computer so you can see what your writting ?

Hi bobo,

Thanks Chris :p

Ok, well in an atom, there are a couple of different parts. The neutron and the proton make up the nucleus and the electron orbits the nucleus. Atoms can emit different sorts of radiation when they are excited which is all that light is, a type of radiation.

As the electron orbits the nucleus, it can occupy different levels of energy or different orbits around the nucleus. If it is excited, the jumping of an electron from one orbit to another causes the atom to emit, or give off a photon which is a particle of light.

So that is the way the light bit is done.

Now to the other part of the question, how does a computer monitor work? Magic, alright not really.

There have been a number of types of monitors, the old ones being the cathode ray tubes. You may be a bit young to remember these. They were the big box looking things.

Most computers have LCDs, this stands for liquid crystal display.

The material in the monitor is almost a liquid with rod shaped molecules in it. These molecules are twisted, as in turned from being upright like this I to horizontal like this – via electrical currents.

The rods make up pixels, and each pixel in the monitor has three sub pixels that are red, blue, and green. When these are lit in certain patterns and intensities we see images or writing.

It’s pretty cool.