Nobel prize for blue

[Arfa Daily]

"josephkk" <joseph_barrett@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:uci84ap76emjltejv7h6071u3a5pkus7a5@4ax.com...

On Wed, 15 Oct 2014 08:30:22 +0100, N_Cook <diverse@tcp.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/10/2014 04:27, micky wrote:
I think 3 people won the Nobel Prize in physics for inventing the blue
LED.

Did the inventor of the first (red) LED get a Nobel prize. It seems a
lot harder to invent the first one than the third or fourth.

The red guy perhaps was the first to think of the idea, but even if not,
he had to think it could be done and then go do it.

The blue guy just has to try many many combinations unitil he finds one
that is blue. Just because it's the last piece in the puzzle, I don't
think it's Nobel-worthy.


Fair point, certainly wrt yellow or green or orange but blue was the
key to getting to white LED-light, a quantum leap ;-)

No, not a quantum leap. Certainly not compared to the initial LED.

?-)

I rather think it was actually. The principle of the LED had been known for
a long time, and producing the first commercially successful ones was more a
case of tweaking and refining than 'real' innovation. Producing the other
long and medium wavelength colours such as yellow and green was a variation
on a theme. Producing a successful blue LED with a useable level of output
was rather more difficult and defeated those who were trying for many years.
I can remember the first LEDs appearing, and yes, for sure, they were an
interesting component that made it possible to produce low voltage numeric
displays and panel indicators, and the other colours that followed improved
the versatility in that respect, but the real 'holy grail' was the blue one
which, as Mr Cook suggests, was the final puzzle piece to open up the way
for full colour video display panels, and white light for space lighting ...

Arfa

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Isn't the real question whether blue LEDs were the result of engineering
breakthroughs, or fundamental scientific research?

Based on what I read a few months ago about the dogged work of the man who
made the breakthrough, I'm inclined to go with the former, and say that this
work was not worthy of a Nobel for physics.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

josephkk wrote:

On Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:33:22 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:


larrymoencurly@my-deja.com wrote:

On Tuesday, October 14, 2014 8:51:08 PM UTC-7, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

Some people think Henry Ford invented the car. It is a
matter of thinking. Henry Ford, along with Adolf Hitler,
were the ones who worked to put cars in the hands of
ordinary people, not just the well to do. Deusenbergs were
around for a longtime, so were other companies.

Henry Ford invented the first car that really mattered.
More importantly, Henry Ford invented the modern age.


No. He took existing production line concepts and applied them to a
simple car he designed. Prior to that, each car was built one at a time
which was slow and expensive.

The production line was developed to build rifles for the U.S. Army,
with interchangable parts.

Interchangable parts (specifically for guns) is at least 50 years older
than H. Fords production line for cars.

Yes, but he was the first to apply that to building cars to bring the
price down enough for thee average working man.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Arfa Daily]

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:m21osl$pde$1@dont-email.me...

Isn't the real question whether blue LEDs were the result of engineering
breakthroughs, or fundamental scientific research?

Based on what I read a few months ago about the dogged work of the man who
made the breakthrough, I'm inclined to go with the former, and say that
this work was not worthy of a Nobel for physics.

Although the first 'true' LEDs were produced quite early in the 20th
century, as far as I can see, it was not technical development that held
back commercial production for another 30 or 40 years. Rather, it was one of
those curiosities that no-one could see much use for. For sure, that changed
as a result of ongoing research and development, and of course discovery of
improved materials and techniques, but it was all variations and
improvements on a theme.

On the other hand, attempts to produce a blue emitting LED, were pretty much
continuous after the introduction of the long and medium wavelength devices,
because this was the holy grail for true usefulness of the technology.
Production of a blue LED requires the use of different materials that are
extremely difficult to apply semiconductor creation techniques to, and doing
so defeated the best scientific brains, world-wide, for a generation. The
fact that someone finally did, paving the way to the usability quantum leap
after 30 years of intensive world-wide attempts is, in my humble opinion,
probably the most note-worthy event of the whole LED story.

Does that deserve a NPP ? Hard to say. As others have commented, they are
not really about what they appear to be on the surface, but I certainly
wouldn't have said that it was any less deserving than the original
invention, which of course was major in its own right, and as I said, in my
opinion probably a lot more so, not least for the huge potential that it has
released for energy saving in lighting world-wide ...

Arfa
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