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It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]
- amelius 3y agoI'm looking for __pink__ leds, but can't find a good source. Digikey has only very limited options with many packages like 0805 missing.
- kayfox 3y agoPink LEDs need a custom phosphor so they may not be available in some sizes. They are also not in high demand, so not a lot of different parts are made.
- kken 3y agohttps://www.lcsc.com/products/Light-Emitting-Diodes-LED_528.html?keyword=pink https://www.lcsc.com/products/Light-Emitting-Diodes-LED_528....
- amelius 3y agoEither out of stock or not 0805 ...
- jldugger 3y ago"This LED needs to be light red. NOT PINK! LIGHT! RED!"
- vardump 3y agoAssuming everything is reported fairly, I really can't imagine being Nichia's customer. Ever. Sacking and not compensating the employee that single-handedly made Nichia successful by inventing a working blue LED and saving Nichia from bankruptcy is just not acceptable.
- creativeSlumber 3y agoI agree with you. It says the original CEO was a researcher himself and that's why he understood the risks funded the request. Things changed after his son-in-law took control as CEO. It doesn't mention if the son-n-law had any background in the industry or semiconductor research, or was just appointed CEO just because he was the son-in-law. I think that's where the company went wrong.
- th9o2u4234234 3y agoDestruction of Japanese companies by "management types" sounds like a theme that gets repeated over and over. Sony/Nissan is probably the most egregious one. I guess this is a universal; most US companies were killed off by similar thought-process.
- hugryhoop 3y agoIt's complicated. For 1 employee which disobeyed orders and saved the company you'll have 99 which disobeyed orders and don't produce anything useful or even made harm. This is called the Halo effect.
- IncreasePosts 3y agoYes, but the odds that someone who invents the blue LED also invents something else amazing is much better than a random employee who did not invent the blue LED inventing something amazing.
- dymk 3y agoWell, if they really thought it was a waste of time, they could have fired him in the first few years, but instead they kept funding his research. The company was doing one thing with its right hand, and something entirely different with its left. I'm not saying the halo effect isn't real or not applicable here. But a multi-billion dollar invention warrants Extenuating Circumstances, and it's oh so very convenient that the CEO can say "well we don't want to inspire this kind of behavior in other employees!" after the profits are realized.
- bawolff 3y agoI think it would have been reasonable to fire him before he made the breakthrough. Sometimes you have to cut your losses. Its his treatment after success that seemed egregious.
- dudeinjapan 3y agoIt is extremely difficult to fire employees in Japan. Disobeying orders is in general not a fireable offense.
- willis936 3y agoI'm not sure it is the Halo effect here. Imagine how much more money they would have made if more employees ignored the new CEO, or if there was a different CEO.
- junon 3y agoTotally. I actually went to check mouser to see if they had nichia brand stuff - a few odds and ends but they're not even listed on the manufacturer list for LEDs. Will watch out for them and avoid whenever possible from now on.
- legitster 3y agoThis makes more sense having learned more about Japanese business culture and the concept of salarymen.
- rpnx 3y agoThey didn't sack him, he quit for better pay. In Japan companies rarely sack employees and employees rarely quit. People are expected to stay with the same company basically their whole life. That's why he didn't get fired for disobeying orders. Firing someone in Japan is somewhat socially taboo (just like quitting) and therefore rare. In Japan, companies are considered to be like "family". It would be kind of a joke here in the USA, but in Japan there is a lot of loyalty in both directions. Part of the reason they sued him is probably the butthurt of him quitting. Quitting, even for better pay, is kind of like a big "fuck you" in Japan.
- timr 3y agoThat's sort of true (less so these days), but it's also quite common for companies to treat undesired people like crap in order to drive them to quit. It's what they do instead of firing in the lifetime employment model -- you've been promoted to head of the floor-sweeping department. Ganbatte! I don't know if that was going on here, but it sure sounds like it. (It could also be that the actual story is completely different than reported here, of course.)
- robocat 3y ago> treat undesired people like crap in order to drive them to quit There is a Japanese word for it: 追い出し部屋 Oidashibeya https://jlearn.net/dictionary/追い出し部屋 https://jlearn.net/dictionary/追い出し部屋 A crappy NYT article but gives the idea: https://archive.ph/k84cb https://archive.ph/k84cb
- Exoristos 3y agoThat's how many U.S. corps still were back in the late Eighties, early Nineties when I started working. I remember the first layoffs in my division and how shocked everyone was.
- Schattenbaer 3y agoThe Nichia 519A is a one of the favourite LEDs in the enthusiast flashlight world. It's a high CRI quite bright LED, and I have to shamefully admit that I specifically specced a light in the past with this LED. Before I knew about this, that is. Example write-up to see what flashlight nerds talk about: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/nichia-519a/64360/43 https://budgetlightforum.com/t/nichia-519a/64360/43
- ranger207 3y agoI always knew there was a reason I preferred the LH351D
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- graphe 3y agoLike the other person said, nichia makes good LEDs. They make a UV free LED. https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_optisolis.html https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_optisolis.ht...
- DanHulton 3y agoI can, though indirectly. Odds are good I've bought hundreds of consumer goods with Nichia LEDs in it without knowing, and I'll probably buy hundreds more. (Not that I'm endorsing not caring, just pointing out how frustratingly hard it is to avoid giving money to companies like this.)
- khaki54 3y agoThanks for the billions in revenue, but remember how I told you to quit trying to use GaN to solve the blue LED problems? Well here's $147 for your patent and clean out your desk, because you're fired.
- creativeSlumber 3y agoa good leader need to be humble enough to spot when they are wrong and correct course. This guy sounds like he had control issues, and kept a grudge. very childish behavior.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nox101 3y agoI feel like I remember he complained that Japan would likely fall behind by their best and brightest going outside Japan knowing that inside they would not be compensated. My search-fu is failing though. I did find this interview https://www.jsap.or.jp/jsapi/Pdf/Number02/Interview.pdf https://www.jsap.or.jp/jsapi/Pdf/Number02/Interview.pdf
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y agoIf only it was impossible. Blue leds are abominable! [EDIT] I hate white ones too so the replies aren't exactly selling them!
- jlokier 3y agoI wasn't a big fan of the excessive blue LEDs that appeared everywhere after they were invented, either. Though it was understandable enthusiasm for something new by product developers, after decades of having only red-green combinations. But blue LEDs are what make white LEDs work, and those have revolutionised ordinary lighting in a big way. The linked video goes into this at the end. Blue LEDs (or white LEDs, or blue OLEDs) are also used in modern, high quality computer and phone displays.
- jacquesm 3y agoWhite LEDs were/are also made using a UV LED and phosphor.
- joks 3y ago????? Blue LEDs made white LEDs & LED displays possible. And blue light being bad for your circadian rhythm is just as true for an LCD display as it is an LED display.
- ballenf 3y agoI loved the closing interview where Nakamura explained he grew up in a fishing village with a view of the sea, inspiring his love of the color blue.
- wutwutwat 3y ago[flagged]
- pipe01 3y agoHe just said he likes the color blue because of the ocean, where does bis success come in on that?
- wutwutwat 3y agoOk, let me maybe phrase it as a question. Had he not invented the blue led, would he be telling everyone his childhood in the fishing village made him love the color blue, or would that inspiring memory not exist or maybe not be so significant?
- Arrath 3y agoSince it's really impossible to say, we can consider the possibility that humble not-famous not-inventor alternate universe man might just live in a house with rooms painted various shades of blue because he loves the color so much. Or might run an etsy shop where the products are curiously mostly available in blue colors. Or he's a hobbyist 3d printer enthusiast and likes to use blue filament. Would he tell others that story? Maybe to bemused guests who remark upon entering the House of Blue. Who knows!
- dymk 3y agoWho cares? Its a weird gotcha to get hung up on.
- throwup238 3y ago
- earthwalker99 3y ago[flagged]
- W4ldi 3y agoWhat's your point? That statement has nothing to do with the problem at hand.
- Draiken 3y agoHow is that not the problem at hand? The only reason the inventor didn't get properly compensated is because the system is designed to reward existing capital. I can guarantee you the CEO that inherited the position due to family ties didn't earn $60k a year. Neither he worked for a year and a half without weekends. This is capitalism.
- dymk 3y agoThe problem is that he was unfairly compensated by the economic system (capitalism) he works in, and had to fight for years only to just about break even on legal fees. The guy's gumption led to the invention of a multi-billion dollar pear year industry, and he got basically none of it.
- ralusek 3y agoThe inverse also happens, though, because socialism fails to capture the value. According to the labor theory of value, for example, his work would’ve been valued at some function of (training * hours worked). Despite creating billions in value for humanity, he would’ve been treated very similarly to the rest of his coworkers
- Draiken 3y agoNobody's talking about socialism. But let's say it was a more socialist society. As a result, everyone would be earning more, including him. And maybe the CEO that tried to fuck his research would earn less. IDK but for me that sounds like a very good trade-off, given the CEO did nothing, as always, and got billions.
- seanhunter 3y agoAs someone who has trouble sleeping and particularly needs dark sleep I wish it had been impossible to make a blue LED.
- adammarples 3y agono, we've put it on your headphones, your electric blanket, your everything. the blue led must be seen.
- BadHumans 3y agoSeems like an extreme stance for a easily solvable problem.
- not_a_shill 3y agoThat's how you can tell it's a joke
- tekla 3y agoIt's HN. There is a very strong possibility its not.
- tekla 3y agoYou could, you know, tape over them or something, about 5 mins of work.
- stratigos 3y agoBlue LEDs are the bane of my light-sensitive eyes' existence, and it pains me so to know they almost never existed at all. I keep a PC repair kit with me, even though I dont have a desktop computer, because I need to take all of my electronics apart and take these stupid blue LEDs out of them.
- comradesmith 3y agoDo you like OLED displays?
- quenix 3y agoLED lighting wouldn't exist if not for blue LEDs. And neither would much of modern display technology. The importance of this discovery was not because we could make shiny blue light with it.
- Dylan16807 3y ago> And neither would much of modern display technology. The vast majority of monitors and televisions are still LCD, and they would work Just Fine if they were still using fluorescent backlights. It would have more of an impact on phones, but not earth-shaking. Do blue OLEDs even use the same technology?
- jacobolus 3y agoLED lighting in practice is typically terrible (though not always or inevitably): the spectrum is too blue and too spiky, without due respect for human needs. It has ruined nighttime lighting, especially outdoors in applications like street lamps, car headlamps, camp lamps, and flashlights. Whatever marketing people are making decisions in the lighting industry have insufficient understanding of human color vision and/or just don't care, consumers or other people making purchasing decisions have poor understanding of the options and their effects, and government regulation has not kept up with the technology.
- etiam 3y agoAgreed on all. I'd like to add it also pains me that the power to produce about five times more light for the same electricity expenditure has been given without question or qualification to most of humankind, and yet almost no-one seems to ask themselves whether keeping spending the same energy and producing about five times as much light is what they should be doing...
- BoppreH 3y agoWhich is why I was always baffled by the decorative lights in my old office. It was a wall with small scattered lights in different colors, so they used recessed LEDs. Fine. But instead of color LEDs with a neutral diffuser, it had red+green+blue triple LEDs to make white light, with a red/green/blue plastic in front to recolor it! I understand how this could be cheaper to assemble or maintain, but I'll never not balk at a system that has components undoing each other's work. Feels almost disrepectful to the technology.
- tobr 3y agoAre you sure they were RGB triplets and not white LEDs? Either way, is fun to imagine continuing this - grouping three of these filtered LED lights to make a new white light source, which you can then again filter with translucent plastic, etc!
- BoppreH 3y agoThe plastic covers are slightly raised from the wall, and if you're willing to look silly you can peek behind them. They're three colors.
- TylerE 3y agoImagine, if you built a giant grid of such things, and could modulate the tranlucency 30 times a second or so, you could show some sort of.... moving picture show.
- bseidensticker 3y agoThe blue is nicer if you do that. Technology Connections has made 3 videos over the last 5 years mostly centering around how he hates the blue led lights used in holiday lights. I think I've only seen the 2 yr old one, but now that I have I can't unsee it. The blue is just too blue. If you see a set that is all blue instead of multi-color it's unbearable. It's just too blue. White light in blue plastic is where it's at. https://youtu.be/PBFPJ3_6ZWs?si=sTeRrqQ5umHsNCgz https://youtu.be/PBFPJ3_6ZWs?si=sTeRrqQ5umHsNCgz https://youtu.be/cQgcTkXacAc?si=CDj0G9Sh7S-wbLjN https://youtu.be/cQgcTkXacAc?si=CDj0G9Sh7S-wbLjN https://youtu.be/va1rzP2xIx4?si=cAp65hnmwtkrXgDc https://youtu.be/va1rzP2xIx4?si=cAp65hnmwtkrXgDc
- cypherpunks01 3y agoI thought this was a really well-produced video! It's difficult to communicate science to the public in an accessible way at the right level, and I think Derek does a commendable job. I really liked the LED explanation at the 4:00 mark. Can anyone who is familiar with semiconductor physics opine on how well this explanation models the reality?
- quenix 3y agoYeah, all I can say is that is tracked my undergraduate semiconductor theory classes pretty well. More confirmation needed.
- ace2358 3y agoI would agree. Having said that I still think it was a bit wishy washy. The whole treatment of band gap energies I think is quite complicated beyond the simple diagram shown.
- pfdietz 3y agoAlso, I don't think the explanation for silicon was correct. As I understand it, the problem with Si is not that the bandgap is in the infrared, it's that it's an indirect bandgap semiconductor which suppresses emission of photons. Instead, the energy of recombination goes into heat.
- ace2358 3y agoThanks yes I think I remember my whole semiconductor education to be wishy washy (according to the lecturer) even at the undergrad level. Pretty complicated stuff and I think the ‘band gap’ model is a bit of a stretch of the quantum mechanics that is occurring.
- empath-nirvana 3y agoMy 5 and 7 year old watched the whole thing with me and had lots of follow up questions for me.
- Draiken 3y agoIt's incredible to see with cases like this how extremely absurd the relationship of capital and labor is. If I was someone aspiring to be a researcher, I'd most definitely give up due to stories like this. The person created probably close to trillions of value to humanity (his LEDs spawned multiple new industries), yet he was compensated less than what I make with web development. Meanwhile the CEO and other businesses profited from his research for one reason only: they already had capital. Call me crazy but smart people that want to do research should do it and get well compensated for it, even if they don't invent something as pivotal as this. But because of stories like this, many smart people will never even consider a career as a researcher because the majority would be rewarded with poverty. Meanwhile if you release a new shitcoin at the right time, or you're posting near naked pictures on Instagram, you get rewarded handsomely. What a fucked up society we created for ourselves.
- lucianbr 3y ago> The person created probably close to trillions of value to humanity (his LEDs spawned multiple new industries), yet he was compensated less than what I make with web development. While decrying unfairness towards a single researcher, you seem to ignore the contribution of who knows how many people comprising "multiple new industries". I mean, the people working in those industries also contributed to those trillions, no? It definitely seems unfair to Nakamura. Just pointing out it's really hard to be fair to everyone, as your comment inadvertently proves. At least he got a Nobel prize, which means both recognition and money.
- dang 3y agoCould you please stop using HN for ideological battle? Your account has been doing this a lot lately, and when an account is primarily doing that, this is a line at which we ban the account. Past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39314755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39314755.
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- tobr 3y agoWhat happened to zinc selenide then? Was there some reason it didn’t work out as well?
- ak217 3y agoSelenium is much more toxic than gallium, so even if it could be tweaked to work, it's a very hazardous chemical to produce or recycle. I'd expect that to be the main reason nobody bothers with zinc selenide anymore.
- angarg12 3y agoThere is something oddly humbling and inspiring about this story. The scientist thanklessly slaved away for a year and half before even producing the first breakthrough. It must require an immense amount of perseverance to do so. It also reminds me to the craft mentality and patience of Jiro dreams of sushi. Very refreshing when contrasted with western mentality, where people can't wait to get promoted fast enough.
- Jare 3y agoYou're comparing a whole billion people to someone who went on to earn a Nobel, it's a little unfair. There's plenty of people in the West (and East, and South and North) with massive, even unhealthy grit and determination, and plenty of people in Japan that just conform to the standard work culture of the country.
- otherme123 3y agoAlso survivor bias at 11. I bet there are currently thousands, all around the world, devoting their lives to something that would not yield any significant result. Like the nuclear fussion menctioned in the video.
- willis936 3y agoI'd rather grind to put humanity on a better path than to be cozy leeching off our unsustainable path.
- Uehreka 3y ago> Very refreshing when contrasted with western mentality, where people can't wait to get promoted fast enough. The guy arm-wrestled the laws of physics to create something everyone including his own bosses said was impossible, and for his labors he got raised to $60k/yr (yeah I know it’s more now, but not like 10x more). I’d say this is more of a cautionary tale for ambitious inventors to demand their worth from their employers, as opposed to a fable about good things happening to people who keep their heads down and just work.
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- tmnvix 3y agoI've always found it interesting that you could roughly date the age of electronics by the colour of the LEDs. Haven't seen (or heard, thank goodness) the once ubiquitous red alarm clock for some time.
- morkalork 3y agoBlue led lights on appliances and devices drive my astigmatism bonkers and night.
- lucidguppy 3y agoI totally agree - save blue LEDs for non-domestic cases - they really suck at night - mess up the circadian rhythm.
- graphe 3y agoNichia still makes the best color LEDs. Semi-recently they made a UV free LED for artworks.
- DenisM 3y agoI thought all LEDs are uv-free, except those specifically designed for UV?
- Eisenstein 3y ago"The results of this testing (explained below in further detail) show significant health risks from some of Cree LED’s visible light LED components when viewed without diffusers or secondary optical devices. These risks warrant an advisory notice to indicate the potential for eye injury caused by prolonged viewing of blue light from these devices." * https://cree-led.com/media/documents/XLamp_EyeSafety.pdf https://cree-led.com/media/documents/XLamp_EyeSafety.pdf
- graphe 3y agoNo, if you didn't watch the video I'll tl;Dr it. Phosphors glow when they're lit with UV light. LEDs don't make a lot of UV light but it's significant enough for art studios to change to these high CRI LEDs so that the UV doesn't cause it damage over time.
- mb_72 3y agoI remember when blue LEDs started appearing in guitar FX pedals just out of novelty,resulting in a pedals becoming harder to use as when the pedal was on the brightness meant visibility of the controls was reduced. On pedals I made I always used fine sandpaper to increase the diffusion of each LED, and the result was significantly better. Early blue LEDs,especially, seemed to have a very narrow projection angle.
- disillusioned 3y agoThey sell LED dimming (and blackout) stickers on Amazon, and those things have been a lifesaver for me. My new USB-C charging block is brighter than the sun and the LED is functionally useless, so it's been masked with the blackout version of the stickers, but my Dyson fan which has a blue power LED (which turns to red when it's on heat mode) and BRIGHT WHITE LED temperature readout in heat mode has gotten the dimming treatment. Nice because you can still see the light, but 80% less bright, so I can sleep at night.
- russellbeattie 3y agoDedicated stickers are probably the nicest option, but I've just used black electrical tape to completely black out a lot of blue LEDs electronics - especially in the bedroom like you. If you want to see the light, a few pinholes are enough to let some light through.
- bpye 3y agoI seem to remember the early SiFive HiFive boards coming with a sticker to put on the insanely bright blue power LED on the board.
- JohnFen 3y agoBlue LEDs are an amazing and badly needed advance -- but you're right, the abuse of blue LEDs has been, and continues to be, really awful.
- fuzzfactor 3y agoYeah, that first generation was quite a novelty and really bright. I got a couple blue ones but never went back for more, stuck with green and red when I built something. The blue came in handy for a musician who was legally blind though. This was before commercial pedals had any blue, so it did get some attention.
- ghaff 3y agoHe won the 2015 Draper Prize when there was still an annual lecture. Got to attend it. Amazing stuff.
- Covzire 3y agoCoincidentally I believe all birds with blue features don't get them from pigment per se but from the way their unique keratin structure only reflects blue light. There's just something different about blue in nature too it seems.
- jfjjfjfjj 3y agoThis video reminded me of an interview I did a few years back. There was an interesting robotics startup in Tokyo that I was talking to and they ended up rejecting me because I have an MS and another candidate had a PhD. The job paid $65K with very little equity and very few benefits. A few weeks later I got a job in SF that paid total comp >$250K plus tons of benefits. Japanese engineering compensation is quite poor and the stereotypes about grinding workers into a pulp are absolutely still true.
- Gibbon1 3y agoThat's what I've seen, engineers working 50-60 hour weeks like it's gaming company or a faang. Except it's Hitachi. Bonus a lot of these guys are fluent in English. In the bay area they could make double for half the hours.
- hackd997865 3y agoWatched this today! The production quality and the content are outstanding, 33 mins well spent :)
- ddingus 3y agoThat was a great story! We have the blue ones because one guy was willing to put it all on the line to get it done. Amazing so much hangs on just one of us sometimes. We also have it because the research scientist acquired real electromechanical skill. Most of the time those skills are not there and my mind is on fire thinking about what could be done, and done faster with that kind of know how more broadly distributed. Not having that PhD sucked mostly due to peers not valuing other skills. I know a chemistry professor who values these things. I met him while setting some polymer equipment up. (Limiting details here to keep from outing people who may well read here. (Hello, from you know who in Oregon!)) Basically, this prof has a parts and equipment depot. Anytime there is an opportunity to score inexpensive, relevant gear, they do it. Students often build the gear they need. This may not be science grade, but it is almost always enough to validate a research path, or some other plan, including procurement or access to science grade equipment later on. In my discussions, those students live the program and know the value they are getting. Essentially, it is the same high value our Blue LED making friend has seen; namely, more direct agency and control with far fewer, maybe even zero dependencies navigate. They can explore even higher risk areas of research and then upon seeing potential outcomes worth publishing, can put their stuff to work how they need, when they need. A quick look back through history shows us a whole lot of the hard won scientific understanding we value and depend on, engineer with, came to us via people who could make things as well as think and observe. Add computation to that list as well. Academia could use a whole lot more of this as could public research and even private research programs. Again, great story. Love it.
- fuzzfactor 3y agoNot just the blue LED. This is what made the white LED possible. And as can be seen, not only incandescent but also LED lighting was only made possible when it was by truly Edisonian efforts. >Anytime there is an opportunity to score inexpensive, relevant gear, they do it. Up into the 1980's things were done a bit differently than they are now in industrial research when it comes to equipment. For energy, well-funded places like Exxon and Shell would store and accumulate used equipment in surplus warehouses when they recommissioned laboratories or replaced individual gear with the latest & greatest. There it would age for 5 to 10 years on average before being tagged for discard. The material was traditionally being held as a resource as in previous decades, when it was expected that principal investigators would look first in the vast storehouse for useful items before requisitioning & purchasing new equipment for their labs. But nobody was doing that any more, energy had skyrocketed in price and oil companies had plenty of money so they had only been buying new equipment for years. These were big warehouses, but eventually they would fill up and stay full, and they needed to make room for more on a regular basis so things were auctioned off. Cashthedayofthesaleasiswhereisnowarrantiesofany kind. I ended up with a very small (carefully selected) fraction of what was passing through those warehouses, and it was still a nice multiple of the tonnage that any one PhD had at their disposal during an average career. A lot of them don't want to touch the equipment anyway, they make the interns do it. So it's not often the most scientifically advanced one in the lab leveraging their hands-on experience, and conversely seldom the most capable hands-on operator having their abilities leveraged most scientifically. I collaborated with some of their people who would visit my lab at the time, plus non-research customers and there was nothing to be ashamed of using their second-hand equipment which still had inventory stickers from the original owners. I was constantly validating equal or superior performance to their own in-house work. They would never think of using their own surplus equipment or even going down to the warehouse to see how much overwhelming tonnage there actually was. It just wasn't done.
- kak3a 3y agoI'm aware the key to LED commoditizing is making fundamental materials for blue LED. Veritasium is a great story teller with just right amount of physical for the geek alike.
- willis936 3y agoThe first ten minutes is the best explanation of conductors, insulators, and semiconductors I’ve seen. The rest is a gripping human story with science sprinkled in. The maker / experimentalist spirit strongly resonates with me. There’s a line at the end for climate change and fusion folks. This video is to adult me what Back to the Future was to kid me: it has it all.
- pqdbr 3y agoKudos for mentioning Back to the Future. When I was 8/10 yo, I could recite all the lines from the first movie up to 15 min or something. I really, really loved it.
- crtified 3y agoAfter the blue LED came onto the market in the 1990s, it took less than a decade for them to become shelf items of a couple dollars each at electronics retailers. It was also around that time that web-based communities of computer technicians really took off. Web forums, etc. The coincidence led (yup!) to a love-at-first-sight relationship. Funny as it may seem now, being a mere 20 years later (or: "holy crap, it's been 20 years!, how did that happen??"), there were a few years there in the 2000-2005 region during which the de-riguer of computer nerdery was to go blue LED crazy. It felt elite, cutting edge, rare, oh-so-techy. And it's funny now, to look back at the windowed PC cases full of LEDs and garishly lit by cold cathode tubes, with our mouses and speakers and other electronic gadgets painstakingly swapped over to blue. And within a further couple of years - from about 2005 onward, if not sooner - the commercial market had taken over the trend and made it boring, passe. We hackers and overclockers weren't interested any more. Indeed, these ultra bright things began to get annoying. Within about 5 years the modding scene's blue LED craze began, peaked, commercialised, became a liability ... at which point we began to hastily obscure our blinding modifications with another, very different, product whose very identity hinges upon the colour blue : Blu-Tack! [0] So where did it all end up, this short-lived cultural crossover between blue LEDs and hackers? Well, basically, the commercial market morphed into the "RGB" movement of lit-up computer hardware. RGB fans, RGB cases, RGB panels on graphics cards, etc. But I still think the blue LED is pretty cool. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_Tack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_Tack
- TedDoesntTalk 3y agoYes - there was Time that every consumer device insisted on using extremely bright blue LEDs for “power on” status. Even mundane things like DVRs or TVs. It became so annoying that various forms of tape were use to cover them. I’m glad those days are over.
- bitwize 3y agoI still remember the blue power LED on my Toshiba laptop fading on and off in a pattern that was not quite the patented Apple "breathing" pattern, but close enough to suggest it.
- metadat 3y agoAmazing and inspiring story about perseverance and never giving up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/595d3fb837c58129443b72ad/1609955601610-66VJBCYOFKD4DV4WAFQC/DontGivUpW.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/595d3fb837c581... Though it is incredibly frustrating how ungrateful Nichia Corp was to Mr. Nakamura, the underdog who pushed through every obstacle to ultimately give them the vehicle for more than 65% of their revenue! People like the Nichia CEO at the time, a nephew who inherited the business nepotism-style (ditching the successful methodologies of his uncle) are just goddamn fools. Any success is in spite of their unimaginative, bean counting petty mindedness fighting tooth and nail every decimeter of the way.
- AlexCoventry 3y agoI think it was narcissism. Nakamura ignored direct orders to desist for years, and wound up proving that those orders were massive strategic blunders. So insubordination combined with making his superior look a fool. (On the other hand it's pretty clear we're only getting Nakamura's side of the story.)
- metadat 3y agoI'm totally with you, but what's the other guys story going to be? "This weird researcher wouldn't follow orders, and I didn't dig deeper to understand his level of commitment or anything. If I had, I would've at least seen his level of dedication and possibly rallied to support him." That's the best possible version, and highly unlikely since, as you noted, narcissism. Anytime I see someone intelligently committed to a cause the way Nakamura was, I respect it and will support them however I can. Even if it doesn't pan out, it's still a good story.
- abh123 3y agoA counter argument is that they paid his salary for all those years, they paid for his lab, for his machines etc. They don't owe him a job.
- 3y ago
- hannasm 3y agoInteresting to some, YouTube force fed this video to me today after a seemingly unrelated video about Legos finished. It was a good story but I have to imagine the hacker news traffic may have had a significant effect on "the algorithm" as they call it.
- zulban 3y agoVeritasium traffic is far bigger than HN.
- gcanyon 3y agoQuoting several others here: “We have blue LEDs because one guy bet many years of his life on his ideas, against significant opposition.” This is great for us, but it’s important recognize the real cost of this success: probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of others also worked hard, and bet years of their lives, and… failed. In the words of Willy Wonka, they lost - they got nothing.
- fuzzfactor 3y agoStatistically speaking, more of those having this natural level of talent for experimentation & discovery will not be those having a PhD. >maybe thousands, of others also worked hard, and bet years of their lives, and… failed. For most of them it was not the lab where they were so hard at work. Some of them bound to be conducting their financial survival activities working in places like fast-food companies, and worse in positions where they aren't allowed to even fix things like broken milkshake machines. Far outnumbering the highly significant percentage of PhD's who are not gifted experimentalists but they are the ones hogging their share of equipment and facilities. So a huge amount of expensive facilities don't do any good, and the vast majority of those ultimately capable of getting something out of it end up getting nothing done. Of the sort.
- pellucide 3y agoLets say that the owner of the capital wants to fund hardworking individuals like "Shuji Nakamura". At the same time, most individuals seeking capital for research are just pretending to work hard, how does capital-owner identify the true warriors.
- firecall 3y agoPeople talk about inventions that change the world, but the humble LED is never mentioned! In recent years the explosion of RGB LED lighting has altered our society and environment!
- effnorwood 3y ago[dead]
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