{"id":5025,"date":"2026-07-06T10:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5025"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:05:09","slug":"this-engineer-literally-lit-up-the-world-and-now-wants-to-power-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5025","title":{"rendered":"This engineer literally lit up the world \u2014 and now wants to power it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Shuji Nakamura already transformed the world once. His invention of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) changed everything about our daily lives.\n <\/p>

Read more Inside the GOP border security feud derailing Trump\u2019s agenda in Congress<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Computers, phones, big screens, traffic lights and electronic billboards light up because of his invention.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nakamura earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014, along with two other Japanese scientists, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, for their contributions to his LED breakthrough.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some experts have hailed his invention as important as Thomas Edison\u2019s incandescent light bulb.\n <\/p>\n

\n And so, it\u2019s big news when one of the world\u2019s greatest inventors says his next invention will far surpass the importance of his previous one.\n <\/p>\n

\n His goal: To create a power plant that uses a new kind of high-pulse laser for nuclear fusion, producing an \u201cendless\u201d supply of efficient, clean energy. With nuclear fusion, there is no uranium involved and no chance for a meltdown.\n <\/p>\n

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\n If he cracks the code, its potential is limitless, said Nakamura, a professor of materials and of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barara (UCSB).\n <\/p>\n

\n At an age when many look to retire, Nakamura, 72, bursts with energy.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cRetirement is very boring,\u201d he told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u2018I became so desperate\u2019\n<\/h2>\n

\n Long before Nakamura earned Nobel recognition, before he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, he was maligned and ridiculed \u2014 an engineer best known for explosions in his lab and for his lack of productivity.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nakamura worked at a then-little known Japanese chemical company called Nichia Corporation, in 1979, heading its research and development team, comprised of just two people.\n <\/p>\n

\n But after about 10 years in, he\u2019d developed only three products \u2014 and none sold well. At company soccer and softball games, his colleagues harangued him saying, \u201cWhy haven\u2019t you produced anything? You need to quit!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

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\n Afterward, on Friday nights, Nakamura often returned to the office and roamed the halls taking on extra duty as an overnight security guard.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Nakamura said with a laugh, \u201cI had to check the whole company walking around.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Feeling isolated, Nakamura developed a mentality of what he calls \u201cinvention by anger,\u201d an extreme drive to prove others wrong. All his managers told him the same thing: You must quit.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI became so desperate,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n A last-ditch effort to save his job\n<\/h2>\n

\n Nakamura grew up in a small Japanese fishing village where he learned to love nature and the color blue because of the ocean.\n <\/p>\n

\n His experience tinkering, toiling and blowing up stuff in his lab had given him the idea to chase his dream of cracking the code to blue LEDs.\n <\/p>\n

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