Overview

A revolution in the way we use artificial lighting is underway, one that is every bit as sweeping and significant as Edison's invention of the light bulb. The technology of light emitting diodes (LEDs) is ready for widespread implementation. Its impacts will include a reduction in energy consumption for electric lighting by up to 80 percent.Brilliant! tells the story of Shuji Nakamura, a gifted Japanese engineer who came out of nowhere to stun the world with his announcement that he had created the last piece in the puzzle needed for manufacturing solid-state white lights. The invention of this holy-grail product, which promises to make Edison's light bulb obsolete, had eluded the best minds at the top electronic firms for twenty-five years. Until his startling announcement, Nakamura had not even been on the radar screen of most industry observers. Veteran technology writer Bob Johnstone traces the career of Nakamura, which included many years of obstinate individual effort as well as a dramatic legal battle pitting him against his former Japanese employer. Over a five-year span, Nakamura distinguished himself with an unprecedented series of inventions--bright blue, green, ultraviolet, and then white LEDs, plus a blue laser that will play an essential role in the next-generation DVD players. Then he was forced to leave Nichia Chemical, the company where he had worked for twenty years, and his former employer sued him. The result was a multimillion-dollar settlement in a landmark decision that acknowledged, for the first time, the rights of individual inventors working in a corporate context. Today, Nakamura holds a professor's chair at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he continues to develop the technology of LEDs. Johnstone, the first Western journalist to meet and interview Nakamura, has received the brilliant engineer's full cooperation through a series of exclusive interviews given for the book. Johnstone has also interviewed other key players in the imminent lighting revolution, providing an exciting preview of the technological, entrepreneurial, and artistic creativity that will soon be unleashed by Nakamura's inventions.

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9781322881829

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[A] compelling account of Nakamura's story, packed with salutary lessons for would-be Edisons. --Financial Times [Nakamura] is clearly a great subject for an engaging book, and author Bob Johnstone does not disappoint...he weaves a lucid, captivating narrative around Nakamura's struggles to achieve his luminous dream...Johnstone offers readers much more than a Nakamura biography, for this is also an insightful first look at several key players in a solid-state lighting industry that is already grossing more than $4 billion annually...Brilliant! is a superb introduction to this dramatic story of high technology in action, which continues to this day. --IEEE Spectrum magazine The longtime technology reporter...has a passion for uncovering the mysteries of abstruse material science that is unmatched in the popular science press. You don't even have to understand every word he says to appreciate him... His newest book, Brilliant! . . . focuses the narrative on the man most responsible for the explosion in LED lighting that is currently sweeping the globe. --Salon.com How the World Works column [A]n impeccably researched, comprehensive history of the SSL [solid-state lighting] industry, whose products will revolutionize the way we see the world. --Daily Yomiuri, Tokyo, Japan (one of Japan's leading English-language newspapers)

Author Information

Bob Johnstoneis the author of Switching to Solar: What We Can Learn from Germany's Success in Harnessing Clean Energy; Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning ; We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs and the Forging of the Electronic Age; and other works. He has also contributed numerous articles on technology to Forbes, Nature, New Scientist, MIT Technology Review, Wired, and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

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