How does a LCD moniter differ from a regular moniter?

[MikeD]

I mean, I know that when you touch a LCD moniter it makes cool designs, but why is that?

 

[BlackWob]

Here it is in simple terms:

In a regular CRT monitor, there are 3 light 'guns' that each shoot a primary color [red, green, blue]. The combination of these colors, with different amounts of each color, produce all colors out there.

There is a extremely thin LCD mesh/panel inside the monitor that have tiny LCDs that are Red, Green, and Blue. These are lit up according to the color of the pixel needed. When you touch the monitor, it is making the weird effects because you are warping the mesh.

At least I think that is how LCD monitors work...

 

[Mday]

this is a good link from sharp
specifically this one though

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a "regular" monitor is is a CRT, cathode ray tube. The technology behind it is around 50+ years old. What it does is send an electron (fired from an electron gun) which causes a phosphor in the front of the tube to glow. the colors are rbg as you can see if you take a magnifying glass to a television or monitor. though the technology is the same, computer monitors have a higher resolution display capabilities than a television due to the nature of NTSC or any other broadcast format which basically limits the resolution of television. this is to be changed by the coming high definition format which makes televisions more like computer monitors in terms of display quality.

 

[pm]

In a CRT monitor, you have an electron beam that is scanned across a grid of phosphors of the three primary colors. When the beam hits that color, it lights up. So if you want a white pixel, you hit all three photophors at that location and you get white as they all light up. You want a red color, you hit the red phosphor.

In an LCD screen, you are doing something fundamentally different. You generate the light for the screen and then multiple tiny transistors filter out the colors that you don't want. The transistors work by modifying the optical transmission properties of a material called a "liquid crystal" which is a liquid that (among other cool things) changes it's properties depending on electrical charge. Essentially in this case if you want red then you filter out blue and green.

But the details of the way that they work doesn't really have that much to do with the reason behind the interesting patterns. The patterns are due to the pressure applied moving the liquid around within the matrix of the screen.