Well they’re the ones providing the money. If they don’t think they’re getting results they get nervous and pull funding. Same thing would happen if it was a person with their own money or a friend’s money
@ShaunDreclin Ideal capitalism would have rewarded him. We have gone beyond that point to where past successes are use to monopolize future success. The logical end of capitalism.. It will always get here unless controls are in place. EDIT I was just making a sarcastic comment trolling "capitalists" and corporatists. I am a now retired engineer and fascinated by the invention process. not economics. I had no intension of hijacking a science based thread into some economic system debate. I apologize to Veritasium for this getting out of hand.
One of the greatest examples of how we only see the end result of hard work. My man worked 84 hour weeks for over 18 months just to hit the first clue that he was on the right path. That's a level of tenacity that I cannot help but admire.
I love how you described this, " first clue that he was on the right path " I mean all what I was thinking about is how is he sure about the path he is into. 18 months had the chance to be a waste of time, but now and thankfully he made it .
No Unions would have prevented him from working all those hours. Never would have happened with a Union. All Unions achieve is wealth for Union leaders.@Haversham_Crumble-Snout
Don’t ever go back making “television”. This is so much better. A great story from beginning to end with a spectacular entry of the main character. No spoilers, no previews. RUclips at its best. TV will never reach this level of storytelling. Hats off to your illustrator too.
The narrator is a scientist he understands what he is talking about. TV is mostly made up of journalists with basic information on many topics generally
So he was underfunded, underappreciated and undersold, yet he almost single-handedly created one of the most important technologies in the modern world, a true legend. And I got to learn his story from an interesting, high quality source. Thanks again Derek
He wasn't underfunded. They could've been more appreciative of his work. But it's not like he didn't get anything. He got the budget to immortalize his name, and now he's getting top jobs presumably.
This is such an incredible story that I stumbled upon by sheer accident. Although I wouldn't be able to explain the theory to another, I understood enough to appreciate the hurdles Nakamura had to overcome. Unfortunately he is 1 in a billion. If even a fraction of inventors or researchers in the world had the stamina, determination, resources and insight of this man, the world would be a very different place. It is worth noting, that despite the resulting animosity, his original company showed an enormous amount of faith and patience in him. His employment could have been terminated at any time when he was disregarding their orders. Maybe their are other amazing talents out there, who don't get the opportunity to refine their exceptional abilities.
This is such an incredible story that I stumbled upon by sheer accident. Although I wouldn't be able to explain the theory to another, I understood enough to appreciate the hurdles Nakamura had to overcome. Unfortunately he is 1 in a billion. If even a fraction of inventors or researchers in the world had the stamina, determination, resources and insight of this man, the world would be a very different place. It is worth noting, that despite the resulting animosity, his original company showed an enormous amount of faith and patience in him. His employment could have been terminated at any time when he was disregarding their orders. Maybe their are other amazing talents out there, who don't get the opportunity to refine their exceptional abilities.
@stevendv8487 ah, you be the pawn of the MBA. MBA's are the Vampires of fair compitition. There current efforts to put up pay walls, to gouge on research, is there current step to monetize "progress" for their back row statues....meanwhile, they "inadvertently" lay waste the the very social structures that garnered their surrounding pawns support and innovation. The MBA Zealot is contemporary histories growing destructive force...This is to say your attitude needs a reality check..."They could have...", but oopsy, profits...aka F"k off. Your ideological positioning in your statement leads those interested by innovation to interest more self serving and less societally beneficial...a new dark age...for your personal desires of greed.
I came here to learn why blue was so difficult to make… I didn’t know this was the story of a man who discovered a landmark piece of technology. Just the thought of him staring at a small blue light, completely understanding it was his life’s work and his masterpiece. True happiness in a blue glow.
I finished the video and am sitting here like why isn’t this guy talked about more? He’s literally the reason the world is as it is today. Like working on something that long that was thought to be impossible? Makes me wonder what other big technological barriers we have right now that haven’t been solved
@justinmaxon12 Anti-matter or dark energy. The moment anyone figure them out, humanity will bend physics to its core.. But lets not get too far a head of ourselves. A true perpetual motion mechanics isn't even been solve yet.
@justinmaxon12 Modern society is built on countless invaluable discoveries in various fields. Transistors, fertilizers, plastics, radio, cryptography and lasers are all of life-changing but most people (myself included) don't talk about their inventors.
In the mid 1990s, I was working in a research lab where we were in competition with Nichia in the development of GaN blue LED and lasers, also using our home-grown MOCVD machines. Dr. Nakamura was always 2 (or more!) steps ahead of us. I still vividly remember when we got our hands on a prototype of his deep blue LEDs after a conference. We turned it on in the lab, with lights down, expecting a weak blue emission, as we got from our own devices. It came on so bright and so blue, it illuminated the whole room! It blew our mind, we couldn’t believe it. How had he done that? He was the blue LED magician. Nobel prize well deserved, and then some.
Yeah, I was at HP Labs at that time, and we were contemplating spending $10 for a wimpy blue LED to detect yellow ink dots on paper in an inkjet printer, to determine if the inkjet printhead was working. And then came along Shuji Nakamura’s blue LED from Nichia. A mind blowing achievement!
Pretty common surprisingly. I still find it funny that big bang theory was conceived by a Christian pastor and he was dismissed because it was "too Godly", and now it's the prevailing theory because it has the most logic behind it scientifically.
I'm so glad this story didn't end with "and then he died penniless and alone" because it feels like so many of these stories often do. Warms my heart to see him alive and recognized for his genius and thriving still!
Before I finished the video, I was betting that the company was gonna screw him over and he wouldn't get compensation. Lo and behold I just became a prophet. It's a sad state when everyone is expecting a screwjob to happen and it happens. Lawmakers are so head over heels with companies, when they ask for copyright laws, lawmakers would pass bills in a heartbeat. But when an individual citizen is asking for fair policy, nothing ever changes.
@ericsilver9401its almost like its a larger problem that stems from human nature and not because of your political stands Both you and rchamtv are seeing only the front side of a problem without looking at its angles another fun human nature thing Shocker
I have a PhD in physical chemistry, studying the energy levels of semiconductors, and I've never heard as concise and clear explanation of semiconductors from any of the courses I've taken, and then that information is made tangible in this human story. Great story telling, great science communication, great animations. I absolutely love your videos.
That is amazing to hear from experts in the field. It seems that experts usually find shortcomings in these simplified explanations of complex phenomena.
I never took physics past high school, and I understand the mechanisms behind electricity, conductors, and semiconductors a hell of a lot better after this video. It had never occurred to me that I'd never really seen blue LED's until I was in high school. The green and red ones were all over the place of course, but I don't remember blue ones. I'd wondered before about why LED technology seemed to just suddenly be *there*, and this video answered that for me.
I may have already commented this, but in his quest for the blue LED Nakamura has also created the GaN semiconductors industry, which is revolutionizing "power electronics", from EV cars inverters and motor controllers to airborne radars _(and a lot of stuff I have no idea about, I suspect)._
BartzabelAlgol Everything you would learn in college is easily accessible online for free. You can just learn the math on your own with better instruction online than random courses at a state school taught by first year grad students with zero teaching experience. Lots of solid professors have put lectures and course material online.
@_PatrickO Yes, but to actually get a job, a degree is often a requirement for higher-level careers, and even when it isn't, it sets you apart from other applicants. The reason for why a degree is important isn't because of what you learn in college -as that info can be learned anywhere- but because it provides VERIFICATION and VALIDITY to your knowledge. Typically a job will help a person get the funding they need to begin doing any meaningful research on whatever topic they are looking into. You are right in that college doesn't provide any exclusive or different info from what is already available on the internet, but the degree provides certification such that not just your average Joe Schmoe can lie their way into a job and fail to meet its requirements. It is very rare when a regular person who has no degree makes any meaningful research papers or inventions. Those are exceptions such as Nikola Tesla. That being said people with the right approach and skill are those exception, at the end of the day true talent is still worth so much more than a piece of paper and years of paying off debt.
@MoonlightPillar Most of this is understandable, but careful the sentiment in those last two sentences can and does inadvertently discourage people thinking of going into STEM. It could very well be just repeating what Nakamura's Florida coworkers said, and not everybody has the bravery that he has to be empowered by negativity. It's also pretty outdated thinking, considering nowadays there's so many people and technology isn't scary anymore so innovations are being made constantly from all ranges of expertise. Not to mention college expensive lol 😭
Everything else aside, your explanation of semiconductors & the stadium seats synergy made this complex topic so easy to understand. I hope they show this in schools.
@beamshooter yeah it's a bit messy at first, even with animations and all but they way I understood doping is literally the meaning of word itself. It's like the production quantity of free electrons (or even holes) is on steroids, so the semiconductor has more functionality!
Dude, you're out there interviewing people who actually moved our species years further in terms of progress and seeing him connecting with you so well and talk about his love for physics and knowing that you will definitely match the vibe is just heartwarming specially for a person who had such a huge impact on everyone's life yet never compensated properly for it. Bless your soul, Derek.
We aren't a species. We're humans. One of a kind. We've always been human. If you believe we evolved, you must believe that humans didn't all evolve equally all over the planet and some must be behind others on the ladder of evolution. Darwin certainly did.
@StayStrapped2A well, I kinda agree with the different pace of evolution you mentioned, to be honest (take remote tribes who refuse to/can't communicate with the rest of us), but that wasn't exactly my point. It's just that english isn't my first language, and sometimes I struggle to make my point come across clearly😅
@DougnTx If you're a science denying religious nut why are you even here watching the evil devil's work? Don't you know the earth's flat, only six thousand years old and these so called LEDs are actually dark magic? Put down the desert cult fanfiction and use your brain.
The part where Nichia still kept being stubborn despite Nakamura himself choosing to be the bigger man and offer his hand out first later on, really got my blood boiling. Well, I guess money really can't buy class.
@MostIntelligentMan Did you skip the first half of the video? Literally half the worlds experts in that space were trying to crack the puzzle, Toshiba alone spend millions in research. lmao 20 people
It's like, for years, Nichia indulged Nakamura's tinkering, distinctly against their better judgement, in his lab which must have seemed to them like nothing more than a money pit... and then, when Nakamura succeeds against all the odds and hands them the Golden Goose, _that's_ when they decide to screw him over?! Go figure them Japanese, huh?!
I have a PhD in engineering. I worked on GaN diodes in the past. But if I ever have to explain a p-n diode, band gap, or doping, I will just refer to your video. Excellent job Derek.
This video is literally golden, I was focused the whole time, not a single minute was boring. I have learn huge amount of information, but not too much. This should be shown in schools.
It’s even bigger.. the blue ray laser came from this too. Toshiba freaked out cause they had just wasted years on HDDVD that was obsolete before consumer release. The blue ray could put 50 gig (dual layer) while the Toshiba HDDVDs max was 30 (dual layer). Sony would invest in the blue laser and Nakamura. Toshiba terminated the HDDVD in 2008. Wikipedia has it all if you search high definition disc wars .
It seems a typical historical issue, the actual inventor of a particular item tends to get the shorter end of a large stick, while the upper levels of the ladder get the best rewards.
well, if money is the best reward for you, for me, what he ended up with is much more valuable than all the money in revenue for the whole LED industry. an achievement of that scale, having spent your whole life for a purpose and achieveing the greatest of successes is far more valuable than all the money you could get, because in the end you'll die regardless, so being able to make a contribution that size to humanity, something bigger than yourself and all of us and that will outlast us, that is the ultimate reward for me, because as long as it serves a purpose for the advancement of the civilization, it's gonna be not just worth it, but truly meaningful, even if no one remembers who made it, just as long as somebody, like you and me, can take the time to appreciate what you gave to everyone else, i think that is far more success than some green paper tickets, and that is something none of the people in the upper levels of the ladder could even fathom to assess
With that said, people who progress humanity in this kind of way should be entitled to financial comforts. It's not a question of whether or not they are being exploited, of course they are- and they will hopefully be recognised fondly by the people in the know (that's the scientific and engineering communities). But they should still be rewarded with a good standard of living no matter their circumstance or future positions. @candyman7084
One of the highlights of my life was meeting Nakemura. I'm an LED artist, and had a piece on display on stage with him once. Such a cool experience. Great guy.
Yes PLEASE SHARE MORE about your art. I dont see any videos on your youtube..do you have a deviantart or artstation or instsgram? Thanks for sharing your story. Hope to hear more.
on that video where he talked how it was the very cruel company making farmers no being able to plant their own seeds patenting nature and being a menace to the society very bad company
@Cheesy303 i just saw so many people like this comment didnt know i just typed it and,, is it something you want to say , i dont understand by being polite..
You're so greedy, this channel already made a somewhat comprehensive narrative and you still want more, probably fictionalized and for what? Your entertainment? Can't you just appreciate it now
@lordlucan529 Not all of them, take a look at Gabe Newell and his actions at Steam and Valve in his efforts to preserve good games as well as protect gamer snd developer privacy while actively fighting off outsider attempts at censoring games. The difference ebtween the two is that while nakamura was a hired scientist for Nichia Gabe was and still is the CEO of Valve calling the shots from on high. It's not the greatest comparison since games and chemistry-driven electronics are of two different industries but actions remain the same no matter what industry a person works in and unfortunately we live in a reality where these big companies are are concerned with profts than rewarding the minds who make the inventions that almost invariably change the world for the better.
Billionaires are just perverts that take credit for the slaves hard work and waste the money earned on coke fueled orgies for for themselves, always with under 18 victims of course cause power makes you do fucked up things.
Being an electronics engineer I can assure you guys this 30 mins video almost covered 100hrs of lectures and all the major topics about semiconductors.💙
This was so good I watched it twice. For a young engineer who finds themselves working thousands of extra hours on their own time to prove their ideas to management, don’t give up. If management can’t give you enough leeway, then it’s better to push it until you’re successful or fired. My whole career I did this. It led to several breakthroughs where the leads would ask how did you do that? Stuff like claiming Java could run as fast as C and proving it out. Never retreat, attack in a different direction. I never got fired for working an extra 4 hours for the company 😂
@JoshstrawberryBalloons-xq4xy You are so late to this thing. "Chad" was already a thing before the boom of "Gigachad". The original chad meme was for comparing a masculine man to a noodle-armed virgin. This format evolved into the crying soyjak meme. Basically, a meme about making certain group better than other.
Oh yes, that was right in the feels for me too! Especially after seeing what this man went through and achieved, and seeing how modest he still seemed to act.
It’s amazing to find out these little details and motivations behind people. After so much work, he was able to recreate his favourite color, one that had been missing in mankind’s technology for decades. After he did his work, we were able to share in experiencing the blue that he liked so much from his childhood.
I got to see Dr. Nakamura give a talk about his career at UCSB. It was fascinating. He got a big laugh from the audience by claiming that the secret to winning a Nobel prize is apparently "working on something nobody else thought was a viable research direction". He comes across as very humble and personable in person.
That had to be an honor to meet such an important person in today's society. The majority of things we use today were shunned by investors during their initial research and development days. Dr. Nakamura is among the few great examples of great minds who ignored investors. I hope he's heavily invested in the blue LED stocks.
Lol, it should be obvious, but most people don't think about the fact that chasing trends usually won't work for most people, you have to be the one to set them. I guess the humor here is that it's so obvious that most people don't really realize it.
My gripe with most tv documentaries nowadays is they linger on some scenes without narration for unnecessarily long time. Like I get it, please continue with the story
My biggest gripe with modern documentaries is the docu-drama. Either make a straight up documentary or a biopic, none of these in-between stuff. They usually have bad acting, bad dialogue, and they can become repetitive because the actors just repeat what the narrator has already said. It really kills the pacing because you have this 10-minute badly acted scene when the narrator can just explain it in 2 minutes.
This was surprisingly emotional. Watching someone go from shunned by everyone to the cover of all those magazines and then the Nobel Prize. Jeez dude. Made me teary. What an amazing human.
I was just coming to say the same; teary-eyed from Derek's storytelling is becoming the new normal for me. He does such a great job showing the human side of science and engineering, and he treats them with care and respect. I love his videos like this.
This guy had the generosity to say that Nichia actually funded him and it wasn’t just that nice CEO he worked with while trying to make amends is truly amazing. I know I could never achieve such generosity like that.
Every time I watch a Veritasium video, I get thrilled and impressed by the same 3 things: 1. How complex are the fundamentals behind solutions that we use on our daily lives. We shouldn't take them for granted. 2. How incredible are the people stories behind them. Humans can be awful and/or awesome in truly impressive ways. 3. How well scripted and executed are his videos, and how a good didactic, storytelling, and animation can make complex topics become understandable. Thank you Derek. I would pay hundreds for your content, and here it is: free. You rock.
Exactly. Even as someone who studied electrical engineering (so the terms are not new to me), we don't pay enough attention towards the human side of it. In the end it's always about humans. Very inspiring video indeed.
This is my favorite Veritasium video. It goes betond the science and takes us through the life of a hard working man. He started from a fishing village, ignored his companies orders, and changed the world. He still has his values to thank Nichia despite the scum of a CEO, and saved himself from a lifetime of bitterness.
100% my favorite too, this channel seems to never miss with it's content; but this one stood far and away above all others. Incredible work Veritasium team
Being an electronics engineer, I would say this is one of the best animations that I have ever seen to explain the LED conduction mechanism using band diagrams. Perhaps for me, this story conveys that grit, determination, and passion towards a particular problem statement can solve any obstacle faced.
In 24:00, when Nakamura appears, we are literally looking at his invention, not virtually, but physically through the blue light of our cell phones and monitors.
@piotrgraniszewski8544 "Anyone who isnt completely normal has a mental disorder." My brother I think you should look in the mirror if you're looking for someone with a mental disorder
I was once achieved 90% confidence rate from the ML model (this is far before the days of LLMs) we're training after only got 60-80s % for months, the feeling was nothing short of 0rgasm1c. Can't imagine what Mr.Nakamura feel
It's not really like that.. they go through countless failures, they may be happy at forst success but a second later it'd fail and they'd have to find out why, that's why smart people are always sceptical
My mom worked for Shuji Nakamura’s LED lighting startup company, Soraa, during the 2010s. Apparently he’s a really nice guy, and he even let my mom hold the Nobel Prize medal once. He made such a huge contribution to society, but is still a down-to-earth guy.
@Name-lt2tzIt’s just human instinct to be greedy and immediately take the chance to steal something away from someone. In the ancient times this is what made the difference between life or death. Nowadays it’s just the difference between excessive and excessively excessive. It’s just that if you chose the latter you end up ruining someone’s life and happiness.
@Name-lt2tz to understand the answer, you have to look at the people who achieved a lot and are down to earth vs. filled with greed and pride and try to judge for yourself who is happier. The reality is, the human mind and psyche perceive wildly different things the same, which is why research shows that having more money over a certain limit has no impact of happiness. To be happy, you need self-esteem, being happy with your life and, very importantly, a genuine connection to other people. Being down to earth means that a person didn't lose their ability to connect with others and their world perception didn't become warped and corrupted by fame and wealth.
"And this is because of you" I'm honestly glad you said that - I feel like Nakamura doesn't get enough credit for (and might downplay) how much of a part he's played in modern technology
Yes, this is what happens daily. They would keep him in court until he would be in financial ruin. That is why he settled for the money that probably paid for his legal fees and perhaps some minor payout, but that is IF anything was left. These companies can keep you in court for as long as they like, just to prevent you from getting some. They must make an example of your, otherwise everyone would be suing companies for giving you a tiny piece of what you give them in the end. Now as your employer of course needs to profit from you in the end, but the ratio should be FAIR to some degree.
I've watched this explanatory video about 3 years ago, and I'm back again just to revision. And honestly, this is the clearest and the most east to understand explanatory video I've ever came across, even after 3 years. I'm not just saying his video is the clearest among all the LED explanatory videos, but his explaning style is easy to say, the best I've ever seen. Clear step by step explanations, easy to understand graphics. The level of explanation has already surpassed any textbook they teach in school.
I remember listening to an NPR story about the competition between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla that started with “AC/DC, it’s not just a rock band. It’s the story of a decades long feud.”
It's good he was able to sue his money back in the end. Sometimes inventors are treated much worse. Sergei Korolev, the key figure in the USSR space program, always comes to my mind when I think about how unfairly and blatantly scientists were treated by the soviet state. He was falsely accused and tortured by the NKVD to make a "confession" and sent to a labour camp, where he has almost died, but then he was "lucky" to be moved to a special prison for scientists and engineers, where conditions were not so dire, and so he was able to continue his brilliant work against all odds, until he was finally discharged by special government decree.
As an electrical engineering student, I can say this was by far the clearest and most accurate explanation of diodes I have ever heard. This video was fascinating!
@shassett79 agreed. ive always had a foggy memory of whats a p type and n type semiconductor but the visualization here is outstanding. also it feels so goddamn weird that we're alive w in the same time as this guy who basically had invented displays...damn i hope theres a space resort when im 60 lol. also props to my lecturers who use youtoob vids like these for lectures lesgoooo
I was about to make the same comment. I'm a materials engineer and I feel like this video could easily replace 40+ hours worth of electrical materials and semiconductors classes
@mbian0same762 Well obviously, you can't create the electrical forces necessary to force a current through the p/n divide without ample voltage (hence the energy inefficiency problem with the UV diode)
I'm so jealous. People like him are a genuine treasure. And so very rare. I hope to become one myself, someday. It's a deeply expensive process.@Rangeofranges
As someone who works in semiconductor design: Hats off to the visualizations in this video. I have never seen such an amazing view of how semiconductors and their band gaps work. Not only is this story fascinating, it is an actual learning resource. Kudos!
Very good visualization for laymen. Exceptional actually. But the physics depicted are misleading because electrons never pass through the band gap. They can't or they would be observed in this region, which they never are. This is why and how the band gap is defined. When the molecule is excited an electron will essentially vanish from the lower energy band and another electron will appear in the higher energy band. When the molecule shifts to a lower energy state the opposite happens and the energy is released as a characteristic photon.
Humans are probably hard-wired by millions of years of evolution, with a love-fear relationship with blue due to the vastness and enigma of sky & ocean. Just like how green is a very pleasing color for us.
For real. He didn't even seem to really care all that much about the money he could have made. He just knew he could make a blue LED work.And he did, with essentially home made machines, by himself, with no support from his company. And he is still working on the next evolution of LEDs, it's honestly amazing.
32:10 in a way. Bro added more color to the world. I’m sure that’s a title only held by a few. The man’s a genius but more importantly. The burning 🔥 inside him is a solid example of never giving up but also putting your maximum effort into your dream!
@letter_o_hyphen_letter_o luckily this is just your opinion and not fact 😂 I’m just glad I don’t take time out of my day to disrespect people online 💀 you imagine that type of loser? 🤡 oh that’s right, your most likely a rage baiting bot so imagination isn’t part of your skill set 🤖 on the off chances your an actual person, find god. 🙏
Usually, your videos are 15-20 minutes long but this one almost felt like a short documentary. It covered Nakamura's whole career and still focused on all the technical aspects of his work very well. All the electron energy band explanations and animations felt very intuitive with the subtle details like rotations being used to depict electric fields. The explanations neither felt too dumbed-down nor did the video feel overly technical and dry. You are one of the few people capable of creating this kind of content on such a technical topic. Excellent storytelling without letting the science take a backseat.
I mean, it was a short documentary not even that short, and definitely with better pacing and production than most stuff you see on TV pretty dang good stuff
Everyone already said basically what I'd say about this brilliant presentation, so I'll just say this.... l love science and technology underdog stories... gives me hope at 3am staring at code, a blank page, an empty canvas, or a bereft music staff. My pastor and I call this, when perseverance and faith meet opportunity... and God balances the scales. "I will bless the WORK of your hand" 😅 DJ xSUBn {(-_- )}
He does periodically drop this type of video. The channel is diversified with a few video format like on-site interview tours, but these videos are the real gems.
Working under such discouraging and debilitating conditions then to not be compensated for his incredible work is so heart wrenching. Nichia's profits off his back yet they still have him as a rogue outcast!
The company paid him for years with no guarantee of result, i.e. took the financial risk from him. Would he invent the LED without the financial support? Would you risk your money like the company did?
@cheesebusiness taking a risk to make profit is what companys exist to do. at the end of the day, his higher ups were wrong and he well and truly gave them more profit through his LED than they ever spent on him or his research. no matter how much luck was to do with it, he should be compensated because that's now the reality. if i was upset with a guy spending my money and then one day he shows me a product that will make my money back within weeks or days, i would have no problem compensating because its just a drop in the bucket and its the right thing to do.
When he negotiated with the company to get the investment he should have asked for a contract that garaunteed compensation. OR Shop each corporation untill he found one that would compensate him.
I think I found my hero. The way his company handled everything was immensely disgraceful while his attitude is so light and inspiring despite everything. Love this man
it was all that stupid son in laws fault when he became the CEO, never earned his spot in the first place either, then just started making bad decisions. Blue LED's saved that company, and Nakamura didnt even get compensated.
@DJB10T1CNO! Its the stupid capitalistic corporate culture, where engineers and technicians are being undervalued while C suits and middle management bask in riches and take the glory. How many times we hear the suits and their boot lickers say "duh, of course CEOs deserve 400x more salaries than engineers, they have more rEsPoNsIbIlItY". Best physicists, engineers, mathematicians, scientists, etc... get comparable pennies for the work and wealth they generate, while society rewards athletes, actors, managers, investors and all other kind of economy parasites.
Is this all from the inventor's perspective? One thing I've learned in life is there are two sides to every story. Seems like we only get one perspective. I'm glad he invented blue LED's.
The fact that after almost no appreciation, lawsuit and all that, he was willing to back to the company, shows his character and love for his country and people.
And showed what a jerk the 2nd generation dynasty CEO is. He actively tried to sabotage the project, reaped all the benefits, and wasn’t grateful in any way for the person who made him rich, not even to give him fair compensation. Unfortunately the world is full of people like that.
Hey, I work in the semiconductor industry as a chemist, and I just wanted to let you know that even after I had already watched this video, one of our engineers sent it to all of us in our email. Your videos are really wide spread and it's awesome to see.
As an EE graduate, you explain semiconductors, diodes and doping in such an intuitive manner, I finally understood how these things work. Kudos to probably one of your best produced videos of all time
@__Mr.White__ they did. When they were showing the 70s stereo when the competitions "pseudo_Blue" were much less luminous. And how when they added yellow translucent caps to get a "pseudo-white" light.
Around the 27:45 mark, my laptop's battery was running out. The power button was blinking with a *blue light*, and I just kept staring at the blue backlit keyboard. It really made me think about how the things I use daily is someone's entire lifetime of work. Thanks for telling such stories, Veritasium. I appreciate your work.
@NiceEyeballs: gagemason3865's not spreading hate. And it's hyperbolic comments similar to yours that shut down meaningful discourse in society. Think about it... gagemason3865 is expressing an opinion that weighs the value of Mr. Nakamura's contributions to society over the predominant fixation of our time: entertainers and influencers. That is not "hate" for entertainers and influencers. You can agree with gagemason3865's position and say, "yeah, we should specifically celebrate those whose inventions and innovations power our world and enable so many vital functions as well as many of our conveniences of life, moreso than our fixation on entertainers' and influencers' lives," OR you can disagree with the comment like this, "it is my opinion that comparing the lack of focus on inventors like Mr. Nakamura with the significant focus on entertainers and influencers ignores the overwhelming presence of entertainment and influencer content actively placed in front of us by media companies, whose sole purpose is to influence us (our shopping habits, our viewing habits, etc.) in order to monetize their work. It is a fact of life that people are drawn to entertainment more than instructional documentaries just as more people are drawn to an intense football match than a Shakespeare in the Park reading. It isn't an either/or position, and it's an illogical comparison." See? In that last part I disagreed with gagemason3865... even said he/she was being "illogical," but it's not hate; it's not vitriol; it's not a personal attack. It's sharing an opinion.
Concordo. Mas enquanto os "doutores" com seus "diplomas" (meras cópias de seus professores ignorantes que nunca fizeram nada como seus antecessores....) Forem tratados como Deuses, os "Nakamuras" serão ignorados.
I dont know why but this story enthralled me in a way that no other science story has. The determination and will power to keep going is staggering. Needs to be turned into a movie for REAL.
This would have definitely been perfect movie material decades ago, but with the current attitude of using movies to push garbage anti White race propaganda just doesn't bode well. OK perhaps give it to the Japanese or Korean movie base, but for fucks sake do NOT let hollywank touch it.
This guy is awesome. He wasn't just doing some cutting edge research and happened to figure something out that lead to massive changes. He was specifically targeting a certain technology, going head to head with everyone else on Earth, and achieved his goal, which lead to his technology being used across the entire planet. What a legacy.
@certifiedverycooldude Story propagated just to try to give us hope, even though it's all over now, time to give up and hand over the planet to AI and big companies. No one person can make a difference like this anymore.
His resilience is pretty normal when it comes to innovative fields. It’s just that a lot of the time, or most of the time when talking unsolvable problems , even resilience doesn’t get the results and you have to decide to stop. Remember, people before him tried for 30 years.
@freepz4980 you can choose any major in PhD but your bachelor degree is your fundamental field, the longest time you learn. PhD is only 2 years and you mostly do a research than learn anything in that major
Gah I can't say I relate. I'm an Ap chem student and the metaphor just made it harder for me to understand lol. One of the few times I wish he didn't put things in layman terms. But I understand why he did it and I'm by no means mad
It wouldn't be a Veritasium episode without Derek explaining something like the P-N junction better than I understand it after my semester of solid state physics. This was a good one, and touching! I am glad he is getting the recognition he deserves.
Im in EE so I havent gone too deep into the actual physics of pn junctions, but I have never understood why holes and electrons have different mobilites. Makes a lot more sense now that I know the holes are in the valence band and the electrons are in the conduction band.
Why did that ending statement about his favorite color almost make me cry. The fact that his favorite color being blue is so rooted in how he grew up and he was the person who finally figured out how to display it with a LED
I love how veratisium always choses to explain things rather than just telling p and n there are two type of semiconductor. I am in 12th boards India science stream and I have never understood semiconductor this beautifully though I am doing JEE
Cutting to the interview at 24:00 had the same excitement level as hearing a story told about a great hero and then hearing their voice from behind you, interrupting to finish the tale.
No... stupid. Never invent anything if you work for somebody... Duh! Plus he was getting paid and using millions of dollars in equipment to invent it. He couldn't have done it by himself. I would've discovered it, accidently acid washed the hard drives like Hillary Clinton, and moved to Silcon Valley and gotten an investor. Learn something from these videos and stories instead of being a lib cry baby victim!
@chrischen21I mean america doesn't compensate them all too fairly. but it is true that japan especially heavily discourages individuals carving their own path like Dr. Nakamura
It’s part of why we don’t have that future the 80’s movies dreamed of. The other piece is people get comfortable with certain lifestyles and don’t excel, but we are shown time and time again it may only take 1 or a couple people to really breakthrough the problems we face as humans in societies specifically
he wouldn't have the pressure to produce results if he is already rich, just busy dealing with trust funds and stock markets. It needs to be in that goldilocks zone for people to thrive
Finally an extensive video on Nakamura and his invention. He deserves it! This was a real revolution (which took years and years of research), with an enormous impact. A Nobel prize is nice, but it's better when people really understand the importance of what he did.
And here we are today basking in the light blue LED's, and using high efficiency Gallium-Nitride switching power supplies for mobile phones.... the future is bright blue. :) I remember back in 1994 hearing about the blue LED in the new, but didn't make much of it... silly me. heh
Absolutely. Best part for me was part of that conversation: "I love physics... I'm studying nuclear fusion so I just started a nuclear fusion company" Like holy cow dude! Despite his age he's still getting after it as if he was in his 30s! Love to see that kind of drive 🤠
We have a tabletop game launching! Pledge your support now - ve42.co/KickStarterD
Niiiiice bro
First?
skibidi
tuff
@ZzhorkeyT12 fanum tax
It’s so dumb how it’s never just “this guy changed the world and got compensated fairly for it” there’s always some corporate bs in the way
Hooray, capitalism!
what did you expect from some upper class twat that got the company trough marrying the daughter of the company?
Greed
Well they’re the ones providing the money. If they don’t think they’re getting results they get nervous and pull funding. Same thing would happen if it was a person with their own money or a friend’s money
@ShaunDreclin Ideal capitalism would have rewarded him. We have gone beyond that point to where past successes are use to monopolize future success. The logical end of capitalism.. It will always get here unless controls are in place.
EDIT
I was just making a sarcastic comment trolling "capitalists" and corporatists.
I am a now retired engineer and fascinated by the invention process. not economics.
I had no intension of hijacking a science based thread into some economic system debate.
I apologize to Veritasium for this getting out of hand.
One of the greatest examples of how we only see the end result of hard work.
My man worked 84 hour weeks for over 18 months just to hit the first clue that he was on the right path. That's a level of tenacity that I cannot help but admire.
I am so thankful for people like this.
I love how you described this, " first clue that he was on the right path " I mean all what I was thinking about is how is he sure about the path he is into.
18 months had the chance to be a waste of time, but now and thankfully he made it .
@igx_s2745 i think Thomas Edison's quote applies here. he found 1000 ways not to make a blue LED but found 1 after 18 months of non-stop trial.
No Unions would have prevented him from working all those hours. Never would have happened with a Union. All Unions achieve is wealth for Union leaders.@Haversham_Crumble-Snout
Now this should be the inventor's "perseverance" story, not Thomas Edison.
Don’t ever go back making “television”. This is so much better. A great story from beginning to end with a spectacular entry of the main character. No spoilers, no previews. RUclips at its best. TV will never reach this level of storytelling. Hats off to your illustrator too.
The narrator is a scientist he understands what he is talking about. TV is mostly made up of journalists with basic information on many topics generally
Couldn’t agree more about the great storytelling 😊
I agree. This was so thrilling
@asstacoI'd also like to know
@hawdgeal In his life story video, he mentioned that he wanted to become a filmmaker.
I’ve been seeing Blue Led edits everywhere😭😭
same bro😅😅
the guy IS a GOAT afterall. xD
Yeah me to 😂
I thought I was the only one
Also iam making it 😂
So he was underfunded, underappreciated and undersold, yet he almost single-handedly created one of the most important technologies in the modern world, a true legend. And I got to learn his story from an interesting, high quality source. Thanks again Derek
yeah this takes the old saying about edison creating a lightbulb to a new level
He wasn't underfunded.
They could've been more appreciative of his work. But it's not like he didn't get anything. He got the budget to immortalize his name, and now he's getting top jobs presumably.
This is such an incredible story that I stumbled upon by sheer accident.
Although I wouldn't be able to explain the theory to another, I understood enough to appreciate the hurdles Nakamura had to overcome. Unfortunately he is 1 in a billion. If even a fraction of inventors or researchers in the world had the stamina, determination, resources and insight of this man, the world would be a very different place.
It is worth noting, that despite the resulting animosity, his original company showed an enormous amount of faith and patience in him. His employment could have been terminated at any time when he was disregarding their orders.
Maybe their are other amazing talents out there, who don't get the opportunity to refine their exceptional abilities.
This is such an incredible story that I stumbled upon by sheer accident.
Although I wouldn't be able to explain the theory to another, I understood enough to appreciate the hurdles Nakamura had to overcome. Unfortunately he is 1 in a billion. If even a fraction of inventors or researchers in the world had the stamina, determination, resources and insight of this man, the world would be a very different place.
It is worth noting, that despite the resulting animosity, his original company showed an enormous amount of faith and patience in him. His employment could have been terminated at any time when he was disregarding their orders.
Maybe their are other amazing talents out there, who don't get the opportunity to refine their exceptional abilities.
@stevendv8487 ah, you be the pawn of the MBA. MBA's are the Vampires of fair compitition. There current efforts to put up pay walls, to gouge on research, is there current step to monetize "progress" for their back row statues....meanwhile, they "inadvertently" lay waste the the very social structures that garnered their surrounding pawns support and innovation.
The MBA Zealot is contemporary histories growing destructive force...This is to say your attitude needs a reality check..."They could have...", but oopsy, profits...aka F"k off. Your ideological positioning in your statement leads those interested by innovation to interest more self serving and less societally beneficial...a new dark age...for your personal desires of greed.
I came here to learn why blue was so difficult to make… I didn’t know this was the story of a man who discovered a landmark piece of technology. Just the thought of him staring at a small blue light, completely understanding it was his life’s work and his masterpiece. True happiness in a blue glow.
Seriously, with a physics lesson in what makes semiconductors work thrown in the middle.
yeah BLUE LED is amazing for sure!!!! 🔵🔵🔵🔵
Had he listened to his shortsighted bosses and not been stubborn then we would still be using incandesceng lightbulbs like Trump wants us to.
His life's work and his masterpiece... So far... I am interested to see what his contributions will be to nuclear fusion now!
blue is my favorite color as well.
What a success story! I wish he was successful in compensation side in Japan, but I guess they lost him because of that. Happy to see him thrive now.
kek
😮
doesn't surprise me Japan is a garbage country when it comes to human compassion
hi mehdi
I love your vids mehdi ❤
treating the inventor like that, i'm beyond disappointed.
Mr. Nakamura is a hidden giant everyone should know more about. Incredible tenacity and great video.
hikaru has over 1m subs so i think hes known well enough
I love hikaru too
@parzingtheasianbro ,he is not talking about Hikaru Nakamura,he is talking about the man who invented blue LED
Dr.
@Creator0369 r/woooosh
Can we appretiate how Nakemura basically changed the world and yet he seems to be so humble ?
I finished the video and am sitting here like why isn’t this guy talked about more? He’s literally the reason the world is as it is today. Like working on something that long that was thought to be impossible? Makes me wonder what other big technological barriers we have right now that haven’t been solved
@justinmaxon12 Anti-matter or dark energy. The moment anyone figure them out, humanity will bend physics to its core.. But lets not get too far a head of ourselves. A true perpetual motion mechanics isn't even been solve yet.
True change begins with a humble heart. It is only through humility that we can fully grasp the complexities of our world and its flaws.
@justinmaxon12 Modern society is built on countless invaluable discoveries in various fields. Transistors, fertilizers, plastics, radio, cryptography and lasers are all of life-changing but most people (myself included) don't talk about their inventors.
@justinmaxon12 This story is amazing, but there are countless of similarly amazing stories throughout our history!
In the mid 1990s, I was working in a research lab where we were in competition with Nichia in the development of GaN blue LED and lasers, also using our home-grown MOCVD machines. Dr. Nakamura was always 2 (or more!) steps ahead of us. I still vividly remember when we got our hands on a prototype of his deep blue LEDs after a conference. We turned it on in the lab, with lights down, expecting a weak blue emission, as we got from our own devices. It came on so bright and so blue, it illuminated the whole room! It blew our mind, we couldn’t believe it. How had he done that? He was the blue LED magician. Nobel prize well deserved, and then some.
Yeah, I was at HP Labs at that time, and we were contemplating spending $10 for a wimpy blue LED to detect yellow ink dots on paper in an inkjet printer, to determine if the inkjet printhead was working. And then came along Shuji Nakamura’s blue LED from Nichia. A mind blowing achievement!
That's really cool
It 'blue' your mind! 😉
@pandoraeeris7860I don't understand pons 😢
Nakamura single-handedly changed the world. And he only got a $170 bonus for that. 😢
its easy to forget how recent this tech is
Bro really went from "Ignored for not having a PhD" to "Nobel Prize winner"
True point. One of the great engineering come back stories.
I hope all the clowns that treated Nakamura badly shrunk down in their seats and realized how small and irrelevant they really are.
Pretty common surprisingly.
I still find it funny that big bang theory was conceived by a Christian pastor and he was dismissed because it was "too Godly", and now it's the prevailing theory because it has the most logic behind it scientifically.
@safebox36 the internet has corrupted me. Why did I think of the show😭
@safebox36ok NOW you are sending me down a rabbithole
Wow, very good use of shorts on this channel. I just locked in for the full 30min video because the short hooked me in like a fish.
Exact same thing just happened to me lol 😆
Same
Yeah that really reeled me so quick
Same lolol
Same!
I'm so glad this story didn't end with "and then he died penniless and alone" because it feels like so many of these stories often do. Warms my heart to see him alive and recognized for his genius and thriving still!
i was hare for this comment!
Thank goodness 😢
It felt like the script was heading that direction 😂 soooo glad it ends well in the end🎉
Before I finished the video, I was betting that the company was gonna screw him over and he wouldn't get compensation. Lo and behold I just became a prophet. It's a sad state when everyone is expecting a screwjob to happen and it happens. Lawmakers are so head over heels with companies, when they ask for copyright laws, lawmakers would pass bills in a heartbeat. But when an individual citizen is asking for fair policy, nothing ever changes.
He's basically an emeritus professor at one of the biggest universities in the world and a Nobel Peace price winner. Now that's a dream.
Anyone else here because of the Instagram blue led edits
Tiktok
Me is tiktok
Me
Me😂
Yes lol😂
It's honestly tragic how he got screwed over so badly by the company that he basically singlehandedly saved from the brink of bankruptcy.
Capitalism will always brutalize the innovators it depends on.
@RchamTVwait till you hear about the inventor experience in the USSR
@ericsilver9401 Whataboutism is not something intelligent people partake in.
@ericsilver9401its almost like its a larger problem that stems from human nature and not because of your political stands
Both you and rchamtv are seeing only the front side of a problem without looking at its angles another fun human nature thing
Shocker
Peak CEO moment right there.
I absolutely love the way Nakamura walks while wildly swinging his hands.
I thought it was so goofy and kinda reminded me of an excited little kid 😂
I also noticed that 😂
The gojo walk
I would 100% trust any person who walks like that. I believe its the ultimate way of telling if someone is genuine.
@shirtstealer86lol then you probably never seen a meth junkie.... All of them swing their hands like that
I have a PhD in physical chemistry, studying the energy levels of semiconductors, and I've never heard as concise and clear explanation of semiconductors from any of the courses I've taken, and then that information is made tangible in this human story. Great story telling, great science communication, great animations. I absolutely love your videos.
yeah, I'm a 20 year engineer in Japan and felt the same.
That is amazing to hear from experts in the field. It seems that experts usually find shortcomings in these simplified explanations of complex phenomena.
It made dummies like me understand it so it did a good job.
I never took physics past high school, and I understand the mechanisms behind electricity, conductors, and semiconductors a hell of a lot better after this video. It had never occurred to me that I'd never really seen blue LED's until I was in high school. The green and red ones were all over the place of course, but I don't remember blue ones. I'd wondered before about why LED technology seemed to just suddenly be *there*, and this video answered that for me.
Do you know that structured water can pool electrons and that mercury can act as a greedy semi conductor?
I may have already commented this, but in his quest for the blue LED Nakamura has also created the GaN semiconductors industry, which is revolutionizing "power electronics", from EV cars inverters and motor controllers to airborne radars _(and a lot of stuff I have no idea about, I suspect)._
The man really said "I'm interested in physics" like that's not the understatement of the century
My brother in Christ, you won a Nobel Prize for inventing one of most important physics inventions ever.
SutekhAeon You can pursue what you like buddy, dropping out is not anything significant, All the best 😊
BartzabelAlgol Everything you would learn in college is easily accessible online for free. You can just learn the math on your own with better instruction online than random courses at a state school taught by first year grad students with zero teaching experience. Lots of solid professors have put lectures and course material online.
@_PatrickO Yes, but to actually get a job, a degree is often a requirement for higher-level careers, and even when it isn't, it sets you apart from other applicants. The reason for why a degree is important isn't because of what you learn in college -as that info can be learned anywhere- but because it provides VERIFICATION and VALIDITY to your knowledge. Typically a job will help a person get the funding they need to begin doing any meaningful research on whatever topic they are looking into.
You are right in that college doesn't provide any exclusive or different info from what is already available on the internet, but the degree provides certification such that not just your average Joe Schmoe can lie their way into a job and fail to meet its requirements.
It is very rare when a regular person who has no degree makes any meaningful research papers or inventions. Those are exceptions such as Nikola Tesla. That being said people with the right approach and skill are those exception, at the end of the day true talent is still worth so much more than a piece of paper and years of paying off debt.
@MoonlightPillar Most of this is understandable, but careful the sentiment in those last two sentences can and does inadvertently discourage people thinking of going into STEM. It could very well be just repeating what Nakamura's Florida coworkers said, and not everybody has the bravery that he has to be empowered by negativity. It's also pretty outdated thinking, considering nowadays there's so many people and technology isn't scary anymore so innovations are being made constantly from all ranges of expertise. Not to mention college expensive lol 😭
Everything else aside, your explanation of semiconductors & the stadium seats synergy made this complex topic so easy to understand. I hope they show this in schools.
Estoy triste porque es me cumpleanos y no tuve ningun suscriptor
yess! recently learned abt semiconductors and this video was icing on the cake
I never really got how doping worked... but the explanation of energy-bands helped a lot
@beamshooter yeah it's a bit messy at first, even with animations and all but they way I understood doping is literally the meaning of word itself. It's like the production quantity of free electrons (or even holes) is on steroids, so the semiconductor has more functionality!
I'm not a boron, you are!
Dude, you're out there interviewing people who actually moved our species years further in terms of progress and seeing him connecting with you so well and talk about his love for physics and knowing that you will definitely match the vibe is just heartwarming specially for a person who had such a huge impact on everyone's life yet never compensated properly for it. Bless your soul, Derek.
We aren't a species. We're humans. One of a kind. We've always been human. If you believe we evolved, you must believe that humans didn't all evolve equally all over the planet and some must be behind others on the ladder of evolution. Darwin certainly did.
@DougnTxWow, every word of what you just said is wrong!
@StayStrapped2A well, I kinda agree with the different pace of evolution you mentioned, to be honest (take remote tribes who refuse to/can't communicate with the rest of us), but that wasn't exactly my point. It's just that english isn't my first language, and sometimes I struggle to make my point come across clearly😅
@DougnTxare you saying arctic inuits and african savannah tribepeople have the same adaptation?
@DougnTx If you're a science denying religious nut why are you even here watching the evil devil's work? Don't you know the earth's flat, only six thousand years old and these so called LEDs are actually dark magic? Put down the desert cult fanfiction and use your brain.
26:56 Nakmura: You may have outsmarted me, but I outsmarted your outsmarting.
Science dissemination is a thousand times better when historical and personal contexts are included. Very good job.
I’m so happy Nakamura is being properly compensated for his work now. Nichia completely took advantage of him and he deserved so much more.
The part where Nichia still kept being stubborn despite Nakamura himself choosing to be the bigger man and offer his hand out first later on, really got my blood boiling.
Well, I guess money really can't buy class.
@MostIntelligentMan Did you skip the first half of the video? Literally half the worlds experts in that space were trying to crack the puzzle, Toshiba alone spend millions in research. lmao 20 people
It's like, for years, Nichia indulged Nakamura's tinkering, distinctly against their better judgement, in his lab which must have seemed to them like nothing more than a money pit... and then, when Nakamura succeeds against all the odds and hands them the Golden Goose, _that's_ when they decide to screw him over?! Go figure them Japanese, huh?!
oh wow, you are not a smart one huh@MostIntelligentMan
@MostIntelligentManobvious rage bait
I have a PhD in engineering. I worked on GaN diodes in the past. But if I ever have to explain a p-n diode, band gap, or doping, I will just refer to your video. Excellent job Derek.
zip it up when you're done 🙏
@SleepyfrNgl.0youve commented this on everything in this comments section, just what are you hoping to achieve
As an electrical engineer myself I must agree the explanation on the PN gap is brilliant
@irishwristwatch2487A reaction that turns C into anger
I studied this in university so it was cool to see the visual representation!
0:54 coldest line in every blue LED edits out there
This video is literally golden, I was focused the whole time, not a single minute was boring. I have learn huge amount of information, but not too much. This should be shown in schools.
True
Well, literally it's a bit more blue than golden, but...
(Sorry :P)
Yes! Is the right amount of entertainment, education and story
This is real education
It’s even bigger.. the blue ray laser came from this too. Toshiba freaked out cause they had just wasted years on HDDVD that was obsolete before consumer release. The blue ray could put 50 gig (dual layer) while the Toshiba HDDVDs max was 30 (dual layer). Sony would invest in the blue laser and Nakamura. Toshiba terminated the HDDVD in 2008. Wikipedia has it all if you search high definition disc wars .
It seems a typical historical issue, the actual inventor of a particular item tends to get the shorter end of a large stick, while the upper levels of the ladder get the best rewards.
well, if money is the best reward for you, for me, what he ended up with is much more valuable than all the money in revenue for the whole LED industry.
an achievement of that scale, having spent your whole life for a purpose and achieveing the greatest of successes is far more valuable than all the money you could get, because in the end you'll die regardless, so being able to make a contribution that size to humanity, something bigger than yourself and all of us and that will outlast us, that is the ultimate reward for me, because as long as it serves a purpose for the advancement of the civilization, it's gonna be not just worth it, but truly meaningful, even if no one remembers who made it, just as long as somebody, like you and me, can take the time to appreciate what you gave to everyone else, i think that is far more success than some green paper tickets, and that is something none of the people in the upper levels of the ladder could even fathom to assess
History will forget their names, while he will go down as one of the greats
They won the battle, he won the war
With that said, people who progress humanity in this kind of way should be entitled to financial comforts. It's not a question of whether or not they are being exploited, of course they are- and they will hopefully be recognised fondly by the people in the know (that's the scientific and engineering communities). But they should still be rewarded with a good standard of living no matter their circumstance or future positions. @candyman7084
That's all very nice but I gotta imagine if the guy had a few million free and clear, it would still feel pretty good. Financial security and all.
@unclejoeoaklandHe had plenty of job offers from the US and now is a professor at UCSB. I'm sure he is more than secure financially.
One of the highlights of my life was meeting Nakemura. I'm an LED artist, and had a piece on display on stage with him once. Such a cool experience. Great guy.
Ooh, please expand on this! What is LED art? What are some of your favorite examples?
Insta?
where can i ser your art?
Very cool!
Yes PLEASE SHARE MORE about your art. I dont see any videos on your youtube..do you have a deviantart or artstation or instsgram? Thanks for sharing your story. Hope to hear more.
0:25 Monsanto… where have I heard that before.
Where??
on that video where he talked how it was the very cruel company making farmers no being able to plant their own seeds patenting nature and being a menace to the society very bad company
@rishikmahith2885you’re being polite
@Cheesy303 i just saw so many people like this comment didnt know i just typed it and,, is it something you want to say , i dont understand by being polite..
@r@rishikmahith2885m saying you’re being polite about Monsanto because they are worldwide criminals
This story really needs a movie made about it
Next Christopher Nolan's Biopic. Imagine!
Well, your comment really came out of the blue ? I agree 👍
You're so greedy, this channel already made a somewhat comprehensive narrative and you still want more, probably fictionalized and for what? Your entertainment? Can't you just appreciate it now
Agree!
Noticing when different LEDs became available I wondered about this for years! Thanks for the explanation!
What stands out to me is this guy made billions for a company ran by a CEO who was too stupid to listen.
Isn’t that how all corporations work?
@lordlucan529 Not all of them, take a look at Gabe Newell and his actions at Steam and Valve in his efforts to preserve good games as well as protect gamer snd developer privacy while actively fighting off outsider attempts at censoring games.
The difference ebtween the two is that while nakamura was a hired scientist for Nichia Gabe was and still is the CEO of Valve calling the shots from on high.
It's not the greatest comparison since games and chemistry-driven electronics are of two different industries but actions remain the same no matter what industry a person works in and unfortunately we live in a reality where these big companies are are concerned with profts than rewarding the minds who make the inventions that almost invariably change the world for the better.
Billionaires are just perverts that take credit for the slaves hard work and waste the money earned on coke fueled orgies for for themselves, always with under 18 victims of course cause power makes you do fucked up things.
The old CEO that founded the company was supportive, the successor who just inherited was just a manager, not an entrepreneur
Calling him stupid probably is taking it too far. He was not necessary stupid, but had a different mindset and priorities.
Being an electronics engineer I can assure you guys this 30 mins video almost covered 100hrs of lectures and all the major topics about semiconductors.💙
This was so good I watched it twice. For a young engineer who finds themselves working thousands of extra hours on their own time to prove their ideas to management, don’t give up. If management can’t give you enough leeway, then it’s better to push it until you’re successful or fired.
My whole career I did this. It led to several breakthroughs where the leads would ask how did you do that? Stuff like claiming Java could run as fast as C and proving it out.
Never retreat, attack in a different direction. I never got fired for working an extra 4 hours for the company 😂
... almost...
Shut up
yeah... true
True! And better explained 🤣
Imagine how many innovations would be made if sociopathic corporations didn't feed off the blood of scientists.
"I'm interested in learning about nuclear fusion so I started a nuclear fusion company" is the most chad thing i've ever heard in my life
Dude for real
What does Chad mean
@paulk7446a meme about an ultra masculine male with giant muscles, especially if referring to "gigachad"
@paulk7446Chad is a 21st century reinterpretation of Nietzsche's Übermensch.
@JoshstrawberryBalloons-xq4xy You are so late to this thing. "Chad" was already a thing before the boom of "Gigachad". The original chad meme was for comparing a masculine man to a noodle-armed virgin. This format evolved into the crying soyjak meme. Basically, a meme about making certain group better than other.
I love that guy he seems friendly and open to talk to everybody who knows about his story.
and humble enough to pretend he wasn't the sole reason there still exists research facilities dedicated to LEDs
Bloody bots everywhere
@kiruthikpranav5047 yes. I almost didn’t notice how humble he was truly a hero for the modern tv screen age.
wrrr, say, can say etc any nmw s perfx
@sudarshan3965 I ain’t no bot bud lol
“in front of the house was ocean. blue always” that statement made me cry. love this story
Oh yes, that was right in the feels for me too! Especially after seeing what this man went through and achieved, and seeing how modest he still seemed to act.
Why?
It’s amazing to find out these little details and motivations behind people. After so much work, he was able to recreate his favourite color, one that had been missing in mankind’s technology for decades. After he did his work, we were able to share in experiencing the blue that he liked so much from his childhood.
Why?
@VodHighlights Probably hormones out of whack.
Everyone needs to thank nakamura for letting them watch this video
I got to see Dr. Nakamura give a talk about his career at UCSB. It was fascinating. He got a big laugh from the audience by claiming that the secret to winning a Nobel prize is apparently "working on something nobody else thought was a viable research direction". He comes across as very humble and personable in person.
I want to know how the people felt who talked him down after his discovery😂
That had to be an honor to meet such an important person in today's society. The majority of things we use today were shunned by investors during their initial research and development days. Dr. Nakamura is among the few great examples of great minds who ignored investors. I hope he's heavily invested in the blue LED stocks.
Lol, it should be obvious, but most people don't think about the fact that chasing trends usually won't work for most people, you have to be the one to set them. I guess the humor here is that it's so obvious that most people don't really realize it.
I saw him speak in New Jersey back in 2016. He’s an incredible person and told us about how everyone above him dismissed his efforts
@fireared9244 They are still coping
This was better than most Hollywood biopics and Netflix documentaries. Absolute genius and such a great man.
My gripe with most tv documentaries nowadays is they linger on some scenes without narration for unnecessarily long time. Like I get it, please continue with the story
Estoy triste porque es mi cumpleanos y no tuve ningun suscriptor
this could honestly be an amazing movie or a show if they execute it well
Most documentary will show the history of semiconductors for first 20 minutes, gloss over the minute details and cut out the fallout with the CEO.
My biggest gripe with modern documentaries is the docu-drama. Either make a straight up documentary or a biopic, none of these in-between stuff. They usually have bad acting, bad dialogue, and they can become repetitive because the actors just repeat what the narrator has already said. It really kills the pacing because you have this 10-minute badly acted scene when the narrator can just explain it in 2 minutes.
This was surprisingly emotional. Watching someone go from shunned by everyone to the cover of all those magazines and then the Nobel Prize. Jeez dude. Made me teary. What an amazing human.
this is what genius is about, hard work and endurance, what a Chad.
I was just coming to say the same; teary-eyed from Derek's storytelling is becoming the new normal for me. He does such a great job showing the human side of science and engineering, and he treats them with care and respect. I love his videos like this.
@ivanleon6164 Hard work, endurance, and LUCK. Don't forget there are thousands out there like him who will never find their breakthrough.
no such thing as shunx or for or etc
@zes3813 Take a deep breath and type that in English.
This guy had the generosity to say that Nichia actually funded him and it wasn’t just that nice CEO he worked with while trying to make amends is truly amazing. I know I could never achieve such generosity like that.
Every time I watch a Veritasium video, I get thrilled and impressed by the same 3 things:
1. How complex are the fundamentals behind solutions that we use on our daily lives. We shouldn't take them for granted.
2. How incredible are the people stories behind them. Humans can be awful and/or awesome in truly impressive ways.
3. How well scripted and executed are his videos, and how a good didactic, storytelling, and animation can make complex topics become understandable.
Thank you Derek. I would pay hundreds for your content, and here it is: free. You rock.
Exactly. Even as someone who studied electrical engineering (so the terms are not new to me), we don't pay enough attention towards the human side of it. In the end it's always about humans. Very inspiring video indeed.
These videos are growing in quality incredibly
I got to thinking the other day that these videos are better than the KPBS Nova series...
There is only one "s" in Veritasium. EDIT: Fixed now. Jrodartec had originally put "Veritassium." Too much "ass" for my taste.
We don't deserve someone like Derek but he is someone who we definitely desperately need.
This is my favorite Veritasium video. It goes betond the science and takes us through the life of a hard working man. He started from a fishing village, ignored his companies orders, and changed the world. He still has his values to thank Nichia despite the scum of a CEO, and saved himself from a lifetime of bitterness.
100% my favorite too, this channel seems to never miss with it's content; but this one stood far and away above all others. Incredible work Veritasium team
Same. Taught the diode process way better then anything I've seen before, and that was just the first 10 minutes.
Yeah, this was an awesome video. I hope folks can stomach some electron lessons to hear the rest in the video
by far in top 5 best youtube videos I ever seen
I think what adds the cherry on top of this video is that Derek visited and interviewed the creator in person.
Being an electronics engineer, I would say this is one of the best animations that I have ever seen to explain the LED conduction mechanism using band diagrams. Perhaps for me, this story conveys that grit, determination, and passion towards a particular problem statement can solve any obstacle faced.
i almost cried when they revealed he didn't get anything from his company...what an amazing guy really humble too
Mechanical Engineer here - this is by far the best explaination I have ever seen for transisters and diodes. Excellent work!
I'm an EE, and he did a better job explaining some of these concepts than my graduate school professors.
I am a computer and communications engineer. I wish my electronics instructor explains like this, yes we learned this all but the hard way.
As a blue light lover…..I agree 😂
Where?
As a 13 year old I’m gonna start figuring out how hard it is to pick or even find the job that I want man
In 24:00, when Nakamura appears, we are literally looking at his invention, not virtually, but physically through the blue light of our cell phones and monitors.
That depends what kind of display you're watching it on though, right? You would be if your cell phones and monitors are OLED, but not if they're LCD.
@fealca1622 Actually it is other way around. OLED is kind of separate invention by itself, while LCD screen will be powered by LED backlight.
@fealca1622LCD is still powered by LED backlight, which uses white LEDs that wouldn't be possible without the blue LEDs
True
@fealca1622 You do realise that LCD displays are backlit by white LEDs, right?
31:00 the way he swings his arms while talking about nuclear fusion is so precious. What a happy dude
he seems quite hyperactive
Mental disorders and old age
The second I saw it, I went straight to the comments to see if anyone else saw it haha
@piotrgraniszewski8544 "Anyone who isnt completely normal has a mental disorder." My brother I think you should look in the mirror if you're looking for someone with a mental disorder
he wants to get hired to work on deep state projects, the weird walking is not enough and his expertise is too late for going into exotic physics.
The Veritasium logo should remain blue because of this man.
Imagine, the day when he finally created the blue LED, just staring at it and sighing like it was all worth it, goosebumps.
I was once achieved 90% confidence rate from the ML model (this is far before the days of LLMs) we're training after only got 60-80s % for months, the feeling was nothing short of 0rgasm1c. Can't imagine what Mr.Nakamura feel
@TunjungUtomosorry, what's the ML model?
@unacuentadeyoutube13A Bahasa Indonesia NLP model
It's not really like that.. they go through countless failures, they may be happy at forst success but a second later it'd fail and they'd have to find out why, that's why smart people are always sceptical
@unacuentadeyoutube13 Machine Learning model.
My mom worked for Shuji Nakamura’s LED lighting startup company, Soraa, during the 2010s. Apparently he’s a really nice guy, and he even let my mom hold the Nobel Prize medal once. He made such a huge contribution to society, but is still a down-to-earth guy.
and what is better - be down to earth or not? If it is better to be down to earth, then why others are not down to earth?
@Name-lt2tzit’s called being humble and some people just won’t be “down to earth” for control and profit
@shlokbhakta2893 so control and profit is good. I know it is called humble.
@Name-lt2tzIt’s just human instinct to be greedy and immediately take the chance to steal something away from someone. In the ancient times this is what made the difference between life or death. Nowadays it’s just the difference between excessive and excessively excessive. It’s just that if you chose the latter you end up ruining someone’s life and happiness.
@Name-lt2tz to understand the answer, you have to look at the people who achieved a lot and are down to earth vs. filled with greed and pride and try to judge for yourself who is happier. The reality is, the human mind and psyche perceive wildly different things the same, which is why research shows that having more money over a certain limit has no impact of happiness. To be happy, you need self-esteem, being happy with your life and, very importantly, a genuine connection to other people. Being down to earth means that a person didn't lose their ability to connect with others and their world perception didn't become warped and corrupted by fame and wealth.
"And this is because of you"
I'm honestly glad you said that - I feel like Nakamura doesn't get enough credit for (and might downplay) how much of a part he's played in modern technology
The only ones who have gained from his tireless work are his old company and the parasitic lawyers who gobbled all his compensation.
Yes, this is what happens daily. They would keep him in court until he would be in financial ruin. That is why he settled for the money that probably paid for his legal fees and perhaps some minor payout, but that is IF anything was left. These companies can keep you in court for as long as they like, just to prevent you from getting some. They must make an example of your, otherwise everyone would be suing companies for giving you a tiny piece of what you give them in the end.
Now as your employer of course needs to profit from you in the end, but the ratio should be FAIR to some degree.
Hikaru Nakamura
@acmhfmggrueven if so, it was not initiated by the company 😄
Applies to most technology and inventions to be fair.
I've watched this explanatory video about 3 years ago, and I'm back again just to revision. And honestly, this is the clearest and the most east to understand explanatory video I've ever came across, even after 3 years.
I'm not just saying his video is the clearest among all the LED explanatory videos, but his explaning style is easy to say, the best I've ever seen.
Clear step by step explanations, easy to understand graphics. The level of explanation has already surpassed any textbook they teach in school.
This is great, I knew the story already, but the presentation is excellent.
If you see this thanks for the KSP tutorial!
I didn’t know the story, and his explanation of the concepts is so clear that even peons like me could get it
I didn't know it -- and am very thankful for having learned it.
Love your program, too. Perhaps you could do a new take on this story?
Hey, it's scott manley here!
Fly safe Mr Manley!
Inventors getting screwed by companies seems like a common story
I remember listening to an NPR story about the competition between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla that started with “AC/DC, it’s not just a rock band. It’s the story of a decades long feud.”
People are often getting screwed by corporations. Inventors are just people.
That is what a company is. It is what companies do. It is why "we" have companies.
It's good he was able to sue his money back in the end. Sometimes inventors are treated much worse. Sergei Korolev, the key figure in the USSR space program, always comes to my mind when I think about how unfairly and blatantly scientists were treated by the soviet state. He was falsely accused and tortured by the NKVD to make a "confession" and sent to a labour camp, where he has almost died, but then he was "lucky" to be moved to a special prison for scientists and engineers, where conditions were not so dire, and so he was able to continue his brilliant work against all odds, until he was finally discharged by special government decree.
We all are inventors, when we say somethin, we are inventing an phrase
As an electrical engineering student, I can say this was by far the clearest and most accurate explanation of diodes I have ever heard. This video was fascinating!
Right? I had the same thought that this video was a better discussion of the topic than I got in engineering school.
@shassett79 agreed. ive always had a foggy memory of whats a p type and n type semiconductor but the visualization here is outstanding. also it feels so goddamn weird that we're alive w in the same time as this guy who basically had invented displays...damn i hope theres a space resort when im 60 lol. also props to my lecturers who use youtoob vids like these for lectures lesgoooo
I was about to make the same comment. I'm a materials engineer and I feel like this video could easily replace 40+ hours worth of electrical materials and semiconductors classes
you better be realizing that BJT is in reality a voltage controlled device at the end of this.
@mbian0same762 Well obviously, you can't create the electrical forces necessary to force a current through the p/n divide without ample voltage (hence the energy inefficiency problem with the UV diode)
Can't believe I found a video so interesting from a freaking Instagram sticker
I love how they only revealed nakamuras real life interview at the end. Such a humble, cheerful, brilliant man
Yes. And what it cost to keep that cheer and determination.
Knew him personally for a long time, an incredibly intelligent and humble guy
I respect the maker of this video for interviewing the humble man of such large accomplishments*
(spell check out of order)
Mp
I'm so jealous. People like him are a genuine treasure. And so very rare. I hope to become one myself, someday. It's a deeply expensive process.@Rangeofranges
As someone who works in semiconductor design: Hats off to the visualizations in this video.
I have never seen such an amazing view of how semiconductors and their band gaps work.
Not only is this story fascinating, it is an actual learning resource. Kudos!
How does he even make them
Lmao like tons of semiconductor people saying this
@GrodharHe spent a long time studying how to make videos. Videography.
He has explained his story in one of his videos.
@Submersed24 rightfully so!
Very good visualization for laymen. Exceptional actually. But the physics depicted are misleading because electrons never pass through the band gap. They can't or they would be observed in this region, which they never are. This is why and how the band gap is defined. When the molecule is excited an electron will essentially vanish from the lower energy band and another electron will appear in the higher energy band. When the molecule shifts to a lower energy state the opposite happens and the energy is released as a characteristic photon.
Even though it's frustrating that he wasn't compensated properly, I appreciate you taking the time to spread this man's story. He deserves it.
There is no better pay than satisfaction! Have you ever seen a rich person? Living happy, and living rich are worlds apart.
@Dudelarry1000you can't have enough a shot of happiness without access to your material needs. Which costs money
It's his own fault for doing that. He was going to get 180 mil before he appealed it.
@brandonnesfan ? The company appealed it not him.
@LezlyBeetz The video clearly says he appealed it m8
just imagine how hard this was to edit
Blue is by far one of the most spectacular colors when it comes to nature
And the worst when it comes to jack off high beams on the highway at night shining through your back window lol
@Stocks-Crypto correct, but at the same time, the blue sky is always pretty
And oceans
And lakes
And our phone screens
Humans are probably hard-wired by millions of years of evolution, with a love-fear relationship with blue due to the vastness and enigma of sky & ocean. Just like how green is a very pleasing color for us.
And the most expensive pigment for painting, historically.
@Techn1callyMine couldn't agree more! And laughed at the phone screen part.
For the people from shorts: 3:05
Nice one
Thanks mate!
Thanks mate
Thanks, you're a real one
Thanks
Nakamura sounds like a true enthusiastic scientist. And a lovely character. The world needs more of him.
Giving very much anime movie I would watch!
He teaches at UC Santa Barbara where I work. I've seen him give talks, he's an engaging speaker.
For real. He didn't even seem to really care all that much about the money he could have made. He just knew he could make a blue LED work.And he did, with essentially home made machines, by himself, with no support from his company. And he is still working on the next evolution of LEDs, it's honestly amazing.
universaltoons bro stop for begging you begger 🤬
Humble too
Blue led edits ✌️
Shuji Nakamura is a professor at my school, University of California Santa Barbara. Such an honor to have him!
Wow
🙏🏽bro changed the tech game
Tel him he chaged the world and hes awsom!
Tell him that blue led's are awesome.
weird lie
32:10 in a way. Bro added more color to the world. I’m sure that’s a title only held by a few. The man’s a genius but more importantly. The burning 🔥 inside him is a solid example of never giving up but also putting your maximum effort into your dream!
Probably a typo @arbellfriday6613
"Bro" 😭😭😭
@ yes, adding bro made it sound worse. Totally😂
@casper75559you either smart, or you funny. not both.
@letter_o_hyphen_letter_o luckily this is just your opinion and not fact 😂 I’m just glad I don’t take time out of my day to disrespect people online 💀 you imagine that type of loser? 🤡 oh that’s right, your most likely a rage baiting bot so imagination isn’t part of your skill set 🤖 on the off chances your an actual person, find god. 🙏
Usually, your videos are 15-20 minutes long but this one almost felt like a short documentary. It covered Nakamura's whole career and still focused on all the technical aspects of his work very well. All the electron energy band explanations and animations felt very intuitive with the subtle details like rotations being used to depict electric fields. The explanations neither felt too dumbed-down nor did the video feel overly technical and dry.
You are one of the few people capable of creating this kind of content on such a technical topic. Excellent storytelling without letting the science take a backseat.
I mean, it was a short documentary
not even that short, and definitely with better pacing and production than most stuff you see on TV
pretty dang good stuff
I’d say about a 1/3 of his recent videos are 30 min long.
Everyone already said basically what I'd say about this brilliant presentation, so I'll just say this.... l love science and technology underdog stories... gives me hope at 3am staring at code, a blank page, an empty canvas, or a bereft music staff. My pastor and I call this, when perseverance and faith meet opportunity... and God balances the scales. "I will bless the WORK of your hand" 😅 DJ xSUBn {(-_- )}
There was some BobbyBroccoli energy here
He does periodically drop this type of video. The channel is diversified with a few video format like on-site interview tours, but these videos are the real gems.
Nakamura: *"ITS BLUE ITS BLUE ITS BLUE ITS BLUE ITS BLUE OMG ITS BLUE ITS BLUE"*
limbo
LIMBO!
Denni reference in the big 26? Am I in heaven?
Working under such discouraging and debilitating conditions then to not be compensated for his incredible work is so heart wrenching. Nichia's profits off his back yet they still have him as a rogue outcast!
The company paid him for years with no guarantee of result, i.e. took the financial risk from him. Would he invent the LED without the financial support? Would you risk your money like the company did?
@cheesebusinessbut in the end they've got many folds of what they've invested, it should've been enough to reconciliate
@cheesebusiness taking a risk to make profit is what companys exist to do. at the end of the day, his higher ups were wrong and he well and truly gave them more profit through his LED than they ever spent on him or his research. no matter how much luck was to do with it, he should be compensated because that's now the reality. if i was upset with a guy spending my money and then one day he shows me a product that will make my money back within weeks or days, i would have no problem compensating because its just a drop in the bucket and its the right thing to do.
When he negotiated with the company to get the investment he should have asked for a contract that garaunteed compensation. OR Shop each corporation untill he found one that would compensate him.
@cheesebusiness stfu, Results are what matters in business. HE DID GET THE RESULTS now Nichia should've paid his price
It must be insane being him and being able to look at so many things and go "that is directly the result of MY work and research", that's so awesome.
Yeah and we were staring at his work while watching the video too unless you had a CRT monitor.
This is extremely inspiring honestly! I really hope he published any books I could read.
Right? That has gotta be worth waaaay more than the money Nishia denied him. To be able to look everywhere and see the result of his life's work.
Nikola Tesla turning over his grave righrt now "SMH"
that is the dream of an engineer
I think I found my hero. The way his company handled everything was immensely disgraceful while his attitude is so light and inspiring despite everything. Love this man
it was all that stupid son in laws fault when he became the CEO, never earned his spot in the first place either, then just started making bad decisions. Blue LED's saved that company, and Nakamura didnt even get compensated.
@DJB10T1CNO! Its the stupid capitalistic corporate culture, where engineers and technicians are being undervalued while C suits and middle management bask in riches and take the glory. How many times we hear the suits and their boot lickers say "duh, of course CEOs deserve 400x more salaries than engineers, they have more rEsPoNsIbIlItY". Best physicists, engineers, mathematicians, scientists, etc... get comparable pennies for the work and wealth they generate, while society rewards athletes, actors, managers, investors and all other kind of economy parasites.
Love his unwavering spirits! What an inspiring a story!
Corporations ☕️
Is this all from the inventor's perspective? One thing I've learned in life is there are two sides to every story. Seems like we only get one perspective. I'm glad he invented blue LED's.
Amazing story-telling. When the guy held the prized Blue LED in his hand, after such an incredible effort, I cried.
The fact that after almost no appreciation, lawsuit and all that, he was willing to back to the company, shows his character and love for his country and people.
The man went through the corporate version of an abusive relationship and healed😊
Japanese corporation moment
And showed what a jerk the 2nd generation dynasty CEO is. He actively tried to sabotage the project, reaped all the benefits, and wasn’t grateful in any way for the person who made him rich, not even to give him fair compensation. Unfortunately the world is full of people like that.
and also where is his nobel prize???
@luxraider5384 he got that in 2014
Hey, I work in the semiconductor industry as a chemist, and I just wanted to let you know that even after I had already watched this video, one of our engineers sent it to all of us in our email. Your videos are really wide spread and it's awesome to see.
As an EE graduate, you explain semiconductors, diodes and doping in such an intuitive manner, I finally understood how these things work. Kudos to probably one of your best produced videos of all time
Truly. Why did I never fine such visualizations before. I'm final year in IT though.
Why not just use blue transparent plastic?
@__Mr.White__ I will have to watch video first to think if I could possibly answer it or not 💀
@__Mr.White__ they did. When they were showing the 70s stereo when the competitions "pseudo_Blue" were much less luminous. And how when they added yellow translucent caps to get a "pseudo-white" light.
Seriously! Like the whole N-type vs P-type which I will no longer confuse...!
Absolute cinema 🗿
Around the 27:45 mark, my laptop's battery was running out. The power button was blinking with a *blue light*, and I just kept staring at the blue backlit keyboard. It really made me think about how the things I use daily is someone's entire lifetime of work. Thanks for telling such stories, Veritasium. I appreciate your work.
lenovo ideapad moment
@petervh1301 bro 😂 yes I have a Lenovo IdeaPad...
Good timing.
@PritishMishra Ur laptop screen uses Blue led to generate white & other colors too 😊
People like Nakamura are who we should be holding in the highest regard. In an age of entertainers and influencers, most don’t even know his name.
And yet, most if not all of them owe the tools to their success (phones, concerts, etc) to this guy.
You don't have to put people down to glorify other peoples. When will you start spreading love instead of hate?
@NiceEyeballs: gagemason3865's not spreading hate. And it's hyperbolic comments similar to yours that shut down meaningful discourse in society. Think about it... gagemason3865 is expressing an opinion that weighs the value of Mr. Nakamura's contributions to society over the predominant fixation of our time: entertainers and influencers. That is not "hate" for entertainers and influencers. You can agree with gagemason3865's position and say, "yeah, we should specifically celebrate those whose inventions and innovations power our world and enable so many vital functions as well as many of our conveniences of life, moreso than our fixation on entertainers' and influencers' lives," OR you can disagree with the comment like this, "it is my opinion that comparing the lack of focus on inventors like Mr. Nakamura with the significant focus on entertainers and influencers ignores the overwhelming presence of entertainment and influencer content actively placed in front of us by media companies, whose sole purpose is to influence us (our shopping habits, our viewing habits, etc.) in order to monetize their work. It is a fact of life that people are drawn to entertainment more than instructional documentaries just as more people are drawn to an intense football match than a Shakespeare in the Park reading. It isn't an either/or position, and it's an illogical comparison." See? In that last part I disagreed with gagemason3865... even said he/she was being "illogical," but it's not hate; it's not vitriol; it's not a personal attack. It's sharing an opinion.
Concordo. Mas enquanto os "doutores" com seus "diplomas" (meras cópias de seus professores ignorantes que nunca fizeram nada como seus antecessores....) Forem tratados como Deuses, os "Nakamuras" serão ignorados.
Most definitely!
I dont know why but this story enthralled me in a way that no other science story has. The determination and will power to keep going is staggering. Needs to be turned into a movie for REAL.
It's also the editing and writing of this video, absolutely expertly done. Proper documentary level work.
I've been ignoring Veritasium lately. But today I was reminded why I subscribed.
If you haven't, watch the first season of cosmos with Neil degrase Tyson. It's full of theses types of stories. A masterpiece!
This would have definitely been perfect movie material decades ago, but with the current attitude of using movies to push garbage anti White race propaganda just doesn't bode well. OK perhaps give it to the Japanese or Korean movie base, but for fucks sake do NOT let hollywank touch it.
And the impact it had on the world too
I never thought an edit of a LED would go so hard
This guy is awesome. He wasn't just doing some cutting edge research and happened to figure something out that lead to massive changes. He was specifically targeting a certain technology, going head to head with everyone else on Earth, and achieved his goal, which lead to his technology being used across the entire planet. What a legacy.
fake
@sihTdaeRtnaCuoY
*Well said.*
Meat rider
@DoNotPirateNoPiracywdym fake?!
@certifiedverycooldude Story propagated just to try to give us hope, even though it's all over now, time to give up and hand over the planet to AI and big companies. No one person can make a difference like this anymore.
This guy is the definition of resilience! What a humble personality glad his story is reaching more people
wrgg
He should have his own film
@Thatonepersonyouheard this IS the film
His resilience is pretty normal when it comes to innovative fields. It’s just that a lot of the time, or most of the time when talking unsolvable problems , even resilience doesn’t get the results and you have to decide to stop. Remember, people before him tried for 30 years.
Electronical engineer here, your explanation of semiconductors is the most amazing I've ever seen
he has a phd in physics after all
@freepz4980 you can choose any major in your PhD but your bachelor degree is your fundamental field,
@freepz4980 you can choose any major in PhD but your bachelor degree is your fundamental field, the longest time you learn. PhD is only 2 years and you mostly do a research than learn anything in that major
Agree. EE here also. I took SS Materials class in 1990 while this genius was at UF?
Gah I can't say I relate. I'm an Ap chem student and the metaphor just made it harder for me to understand lol. One of the few times I wish he didn't put things in layman terms. But I understand why he did it and I'm by no means mad
Shuji Nakamura is a legend
It wouldn't be a Veritasium episode without Derek explaining something like the P-N junction better than I understand it after my semester of solid state physics. This was a good one, and touching! I am glad he is getting the recognition he deserves.
Im in EE so I havent gone too deep into the actual physics of pn junctions, but I have never understood why holes and electrons have different mobilites. Makes a lot more sense now that I know the holes are in the valence band and the electrons are in the conduction band.
Right?! I never really got pn junctions in school. FETs made more intuitive sense. This would have been great back then.
I'm in high school and nothing about the pn junction was new. In fact it's all in my finals☠️
I watched the hole video thrice times, but I still don't understand even though I am trying :(
Man the video makes all the difference.
The textbooks diagrams can't come close.
Why did that ending statement about his favorite color almost make me cry. The fact that his favorite color being blue is so rooted in how he grew up and he was the person who finally figured out how to display it with a LED
It's great poetry!
Electric Blue has always been my favorite color. Add in a highlight color of white and it's perfect.
I love how veratisium always choses to explain things rather than just telling p and n there are two type of semiconductor.
I am in 12th boards India science stream and I have never understood semiconductor this beautifully though I am doing JEE
How does that make one cry?
@adi5877 because I’m a very emotional and sensitive person and I’m 100% fine with that
Gotta love the dedicated worker. Driven by *progress* over money. Bringing success _in spite of_ corporate executives.
Then fucked at the end of the
agree, very inspirational too
It’s okay, you can change the world, or get rich, but it’s rare to do both at the same time
And then a businessman steps In and steals all the credit 😂
I think you misunderstood the video. Corporations / Progress / money and pride is exactly why this succeeded.
My assignment at university was to research this topic and give a presentation, and I regret watching this video after the presentation.
it's okey bro.. happens..
You can do it bro
Cutting to the interview at 24:00 had the same excitement level as hearing a story told about a great hero and then hearing their voice from behind you, interrupting to finish the tale.
Right?!!! That was truly a cinematic level hype moment. Like seeing Tony Stark tap you on the shoulder as you're watching his documentary
Totally agree, I was watching the video 2x speed and when he showed I immediately brought it down to normal speed
Wow Veritasium referenced my work in a video, 😄 Life complete
your videos are great!
please make an electrostatics playlist too
Life complete? That sounds ominous.
@SirenhoundHe's dead Jimbo
Which part, I'm uneducated in this
Imagine how much more innovation we would have if people like this were fairly compensated.
No... stupid. Never invent anything if you work for somebody... Duh! Plus he was getting paid and using millions of dollars in equipment to invent it. He couldn't have done it by himself. I would've discovered it, accidently acid washed the hard drives like Hillary Clinton, and moved to Silcon Valley and gotten an investor. Learn something from these videos and stories instead of being a lib cry baby victim!
We do fairly compensate. That’s why America leads in innovation and Japan is lagging behind now.
@chrischen21I mean america doesn't compensate them all too fairly. but it is true that japan especially heavily discourages individuals carving their own path like Dr. Nakamura
It’s part of why we don’t have that future the 80’s movies dreamed of. The other piece is people get comfortable with certain lifestyles and don’t excel, but we are shown time and time again it may only take 1 or a couple people to really breakthrough the problems we face as humans in societies specifically
he wouldn't have the pressure to produce results if he is already rich, just busy dealing with trust funds and stock markets. It needs to be in that goldilocks zone for people to thrive
Why is it that this documentary made me emotional? Man, this is such a great scientist!
Finally an extensive video on Nakamura and his invention. He deserves it! This was a real revolution (which took years and years of research), with an enormous impact. A Nobel prize is nice, but it's better when people really understand the importance of what he did.
And here we are today basking in the light blue LED's, and using high efficiency Gallium-Nitride switching power supplies for mobile phones.... the future is bright blue. :) I remember back in 1994 hearing about the blue LED in the new, but didn't make much of it... silly me. heh
That blur-shot of the 3 LED colors combined - creating various combined color combinations with added labels - was AWESOME!
same feeling here too
Tmkc
@madhavkulkarni1 paaya kya hai aapne? bkl madhav 😊
Time stamp? I'm listening to most of this because I can't watch my screen rn
@mcnotsodreamy0:41
30:54 I love how he still walks like a kid, you can see how much energy he still has in him.
Absolutely. Best part for me was part of that conversation: "I love physics... I'm studying nuclear fusion so I just started a nuclear fusion company"
Like holy cow dude! Despite his age he's still getting after it as if he was in his 30s! Love to see that kind of drive 🤠
@@pepito-ky8qp how else do you think he managed to come up with a groundbreaking discovery 😂
@@pepito-ky8qp saying nakamura has autism is a pretty ironic thing to say, no? i mean look at you.
@motopolak Drive like that is often a double edged sword. But, he seems to be invigorated and satisfied by his drive instead of consumed by it.
@eranwilliams4098 Yes, I was thinking this isn't usually a good thing.