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Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED (youtu.be)

submitted 9 months ago by Whirling_Cloudburst@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

204 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The blue LED was supposed to be impossible—until a young engineer proposed a moonshot idea.

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[–] lud@lemm.ee 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Maybe they didn't invent it. But he wouldn't and couln't have invented it without them.

Someone would have invented it eventually though.

[–] Clent@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Correct. With or with patents and with or without copyright, it eventually would have been invented.

Edit: Curious if you watched the full video. It clearly indicates that all corporate efforts were heading in an opposite direction and that the path this inventor took was considered to be not profitable and not worth the investment by everyone else working on this. The company he worked for wanted to shut down his research and focus on following the herd. No one else was close to his level of progress and capitalist interests almost scuttled this invention.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, I watched the video. Inventing stuff is obviously very expensive and I doubt anyone could have done it without being financed in some way.

Why are you so sure that the eventually hypothetical inventor wouldn't have patented it? Inventing is expensive and one would presumably want to make the millions spent on the project back and isn't your time worth anything?

I am happy that the invention wasn't delayed considering how much it has changed the world.

[–] Kedly@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

I mean, the video even showed that there WERE notable people other than him travelling down the same path, his first few leaps were copied off them, he just figured out the last few himself