Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED

What Hacker News said

Strong rec waltbosz · 2025-06 · on “US Streetlights Are Turning Purple”

I (and my 6-year-old) really enjoyed this video from Veritasium about the invention of the blue LED. [this video]

Strong rec teleforce · 2026-03 · on “In Edison’s Revenge, Data Centers Are Transitioning From AC to DC”

>It is absolutely stupid to talk about this as edisons revenge. If Tesla had the modern high power transistors needed to get high voltage dc out of the ac produced from a spinning turbine he would be all for high voltage dc too. This! The soon people realized these facts the better. The pervasive high rise buildings did not happen before the invention of modern cranes. Exactly twenty years ago I was doing a novel research on GaN characterization, and my supervisors made a lot money with consulations around the world, and succesfully founded govt funded start-up company around the technology. Together with SiC, these are the two game changing power devices with wideband semiconductor technolo

Recommends swframe2 · 2024-02 · on “Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?”

The Veritasium youtube channel has a few interesting videos related to this topic: This one is on IQ: [LINK] Pay attention to the stats on how IQ correlates to success (near the end). This one is about becoming an expert: [LINK] This one is about someone who just worked harder than everyone else: [this video]

Recommends ndcator · 2024-03 · on “The invention of blue and purple pigments in ancient times (2006)”

What about the more recent invention of blue pigment LED? [this video] I found this story facing regarding the inventors determination

Recommends wernsey · 2024-03 · on “Ask HN: Do you also marvel at the complexity of everyday objects?”

Veritasium had this video about the history of sewing machines recently [1]. I remember watching it and ended up in awe of how something that we take for granted took a journey of several thousand years to be get invented. While I'm thinking about it, his recent video about the development of blue LEDs [2] is very interesting as well if you haven't seen it. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]

Recommends zekyl314 · 2024-03 · on “Isamu Akasaki’s blue LEDs changed how we light our world”

I suggest you watch this video as well, is goes into great detail on what it took to make the blue LED. It's quite fascinating. [this video]

Recommends bcrl · 2024-09 · on “Linear, symmetric, self-selecting 14-bit molecular memristors (2023)”

And we only have blue LEDs due to the sheer stubbornness of Shuji Nakamura. If you haven't already heard the tale of its development, head over here and enjoy: [this video]

Recommends btilly · 2024-11 · on “A stubborn computer scientist accidentally launched the deep learning boom”

I think that this is a general trend. Various fields tend to get into groupthink, and it is hard for people who buck the trend to pursue the usual academic path to research. But usually the herd has gone down a wrong turn, and it is up to a random rebel to make the next key discovery. For an extreme example, I recommend Veratasium's video on blue LEDs, [this video] . But despite how extreme that example is, it does seem to be a trend. The direction that the herd has gone has been generally well-explored simply because a herd of researchers have already gone there. If they've found nothing, you'll probably find nothing either. So you have to back up. Sadly, the way that academia is structured disc