LEDs don’t need to turn off repeatedly to work. If you hook them up to AC, then they do, but that’s because of the AC, not because of the LED.
LEDs will burn out when directly attached to a voltage source. They have inadequate internal resistance.
Two common solutions:
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Add a little resistor. You can buy LEDs with a resistor built in. Problem: you lose out on some of the efficiency of an LED. Plus it adds some heat that might be undesirable.
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Flick the thing on and off rapidly. (And a lot more rapidly than 60Hz.) Not so much wasted current as a resistor but a bit more complicated make. For something like an LED lightbulb this is what’s they’ll do.
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It’s actually spelled “Peirce.”
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The story is available on the Amazon page for Chap Foey Rider: Capitalist to the Stars.
I’m actually going to damn auto-correct.
One of my all-time favorite Asimov short stories. I love how the arrogant aliens get a little more uncertain and spooked with each new example of the three Earth robots’ indestructibility.
Another one where humanity gets Space Drive that I love is Fredric Brown’s What Mad Universe? , where someone wiring up a sewing machine incorrectly abruptly develops what is essentially Warp Drive.
The novel is well worth reading as an early example of poking fun at a lot of science fiction tropes, and especially of SF fan culture.
Brown himself referenced this feature of the book in his more realistic novel The Lights in the Sky are Stars.
Finally, I feel certain that this way of discovering Warp Drive must have influenced Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter to create their potato-powered “Stepper” in their The Long Earth series.
Wow, I enjoyed “Not Final!” but I never knew there was a sequel story. Time to find it!