Have you ever wondered that the smartphone, computer, and TV screens we stare at every day actually originated from an "accidental" discovery in a laboratory?
The story dates back to 1888. Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer, while conducting an experiment, accidentally discovered a remarkable material: when heated to 145.5°C, it turned into a turbid, viscous liquid; upon further heating to 178.5°C, it became a transparent liquid. This state, which was "neither fully solid nor fully liquid," sparked scientists' curiosity.
Later, German physicist Otto Lehmann observed this material under a polarizing microscope and discovered its "birefringence" phenomenon. He formally proposed the term "liquid crystal," opening the door to liquid crystal research.
Liquid crystal, as the name suggests, is a unique state of matter existing between solid and liquid phases. It possesses both the stability of solids and the fluidity of liquids. This distinctive physical property made it the core material for future display technologies.