From John van Someren, London, UK
Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura invented the blue light-emitting diode in the early 1990s. For this, they received the 2014 Nobel prize for physics (11 October 2014, p 6). More than 25 years later, nobody can agree what it signifies.
A blue LED shines when my TV is on standby but not when it is on. A red LED shows when my set-top box is on standby and a blue one when it is on. My kettle has a blue LED until it boils. My PC speakers have green ones. My laptop has two blue LEDs on the front, although I can only guess at what they are trying to tell me.
Please let’s have a standard: red when on standby, green when working. I would give the Ig Nobel prize to anyone who invents a black LED for use when a device is unplugged.
Advertisement
