History Lesson: Mood Rings

This is my mood ring.  I received it as a gift about eight years ago and surprisingly it still sort of works.  I had it stashed in a drawer for a while and started to wear it again recently.  Staring at it made me wonder about moods rings so I did a little research.  Very little in fact.

According to an article from About.com: Chemistry, the mood ring was invented by Joshua Reynolds and were popular in the 70’s. They supposedly change color according to your mood, though really they just react to your body temperature.

Thermotropic liquid crystals in mood rings respond to changes in temperature by twisting. This twisting changes their molecular structure, altering the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or reflected.  Those wavelengths thingies determine what color things are, at least that’s how I understand it.

When your body temperature is normal, the crystals are green or maybe blue.  When your temperature rises, they turn violet or blue.  When you’re stressed, blood flow is directed away from your fingers to your organs making the temperature of your finger colder, thus turning the ring yellowish.  And in cold weather, or if the ring is busted, the crystals turn blackish.  Judging by the photo, I might have been under a little stress.

So the colors in a nutshell:

• violet blue - happy go lucky
• blue - calm, relaxed
• green - average, so-so
• yellow/amber - excited
• brown/gray - nervous
• black – freezing or ring is busted

Now you can say you learned something today, or at least that you knew more than I did before.