How do neon lights work? You wouldn’t know neon gas for looking at it. Known to the periodic table as Ne, it lacks color or smell.

When electricity energizes a tube full of the inert neon gas, the tube lights up, explains Jeff Friedman, owner of Let There Be Neon since 1990. “Neon is red when it’s lit, the pure color of neon.

If the neon is replaced with LED strips, the Pabst Brewery sign on the bridge that spans Juneau Avenue at North 10th Street ...

“Neon made sense for that body of work, it’s a natural gas, it’s depleting, it’s a time capsule,” she said. “The gas won’t last forever, it will eventually run out.

Incandescent filaments burn out. Lit neon tubes have coronas around them, a fuzzy halo that comes off the activated gas like a cloud, Hartlauer points out. LEDs don’t have that effect.

Times Square was neon's first great glittering showcase. Our Bill Geist surveyed the scene back in 1992 with the Square's burned-out light bulb spotter Marty Katz: "As you can see, there's quite a ...

Neon on the periodic table of the elements, with symbol Ne from Greek word neos, with atomic number 10. Noble gas, gives a distinct reddish-orange glow. Used in neon glow lamps and advertising signs.