# My friend invented the LED!!!



## slagell (Mar 10, 2008)

So I work out a the University of Illinois in an old gym free to faculty and staff. There's this old guy there who talks like a sailor and tells it how it is. He's a great guy, and we've had lots of discussions about politics, academia and what not over the past 8 years. 

The other day we were talking about LED's. I think it started on how I had successfully petitioned the gym to switch from incans to CFLs to save some money and not burn people with the bare bulbs hanging from the low ceiling. The topic moved to LEDS's and I was talking about how they are now at 300 lumens/watt, and he was telling us about a paper proving that theoretically, nothing could every beat a P-N junction, and hence an LED, in efficiency.

This was last week. Today I was walking through the Bardeen Quad, only to see a new plaque talking about how my gym buddy Nick invented the LED! I knew he was awarded some important prizes for his work in solid states, but we never talked about his current research than to say he worked with lasers. I guess you never know who you know.


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## Gunner12 (Mar 10, 2008)

That's great!

Maybe you should get him a Current gen LED light(If he doesn't have one yet) so he can see how far thing have come(if he doesn't know already).


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## loving light (Mar 10, 2008)

I thought some Russian invented them in the 20's,but I could be wrong.


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## TorchBoy (Mar 10, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led



> In the early 20th century, Henry Round of Marconi Labs first noted that a semiconductor junction would produce light. Russian Oleg Vladimirovich Losev independently created the first LED in the mid 1920s; his research, though distributed in Russian, German and British scientific journals, was ignored. ... *Nick Holonyak Jr.*, then of the General Electric Company and later with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, developed the first practical *visible-spectrum* LED in 1962 and is seen as the "father of the light-emitting diode".



I quite like these threads - I'm ever learning from them. It's really cool you know him, slagell.

And there's a photo of him in this article.


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## slagell (Mar 11, 2008)

That's the Nick I know from the photo. I just never knew about his research till today.


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## FrogmanM (Mar 11, 2008)

Wow that is CRAZY! 
:bow: Nick Holoynak Jr.!!!

Mayo


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## Manzerick (Mar 11, 2008)

All Hail the LED god!!!! 


AMEN!!! 




If not for him... who knows where our industry would be!!!


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## TorchBoy (Mar 11, 2008)

Well, _someone_ (slagell) now has kudos. :wave: Give him a big thanks from us, will ya? :grouphug: And make sure you mention TorchBoy.


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## Calina (Mar 11, 2008)

The LEDs aren't at 300 lm/W, more like 100 lm/W or sligthly better.

I started to read this thread thinking it was a joke, somebody bragging but it turns out it is real, whaw! 
Nick Holoynak Jr.! We owe him all :bow: :bow: :bow:.


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## Flying Turtle (Mar 11, 2008)

I think Nick should immediately to granted nothing less than honorary "Flashaholic" status. Please tell him that he's suddenly got many thousand new friends. Maybe we should start a fund to send him a really nice light and a CPF t-shirt.

Geoff


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## Braddah_Bill (Mar 11, 2008)

Some one should give Nick a link to this site.......then we could all just thank him, bet he'd get a kick out of that.



Bill


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## BigHonu (Mar 11, 2008)

Wow, thats great!


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## lumafist (Mar 11, 2008)

You know the lord......!!??!!

The one we follow.....:thumbsup:


very cool story.....


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## Burgess (Mar 11, 2008)

VERY cool story ! :thumbsup:


*I'm impressed ! ! !* 



Tell him he has 'bout 10,000 friends over here at CPF.

:wave:
_


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## jave-mtr (Mar 11, 2008)

Hey slagell,
are you an engineering faculty member at UIUC? I was there in 2003-04 and have been offered a PhD position starting this fall in Industrial Engineering. I have some other offers, so it will be a tough decision. Just wondering if I have a fellow flashaholic 'on the inside' :naughty:
You can PM me if you don't want to disclose any details online! Thanks!


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## Cheapskate (Mar 11, 2008)

So Oleg Vladimirovich Losev invents the LED and everyone heres says all hail *Nick Holonyak Jr.

Wonder why that is. :shakehead
*


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## bobofish (Mar 11, 2008)

Cheapskate said:


> *
> 
> Wonder why that is. :shakehead
> *



It's the same story with a lot of things in the world. There are plenty of things that the ancient Greeks or the Chinese invented that had to be "reinvented" centuries or even millenia later. An homage should be paid to the original inventors, but in some real sense it isn't unfair that the first person to bring a thing to worldwide attention in the modern world counts as the guy that did the inventing. Especially so if he didn't just steal the invention, but developed it independently. 

Talk to all the native Americans about how Columbus "discovered" land that they already lived on. For that matter if we want to split hairs, it was Vespucci, or even the Vikings. History is written by the winners, fair or unfair.


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## LightWalker (Mar 11, 2008)

lumafist said:


> You know the lord......!!??!!
> 
> The one we follow.....:thumbsup:
> 
> ...


 
You do not follow the Lord nor do you know him.



Idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the *lake* which burneth with *fire* and brimstone: which is the second death.
Revelation 21:7-9


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## bobofish (Mar 11, 2008)

Life must be tough with all the idolaters surrounding you everyday. 

I'd say lighten up (get it?) but I guess you'd just tell me about my future in the lakes of fire. Ugh.


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## 270winchester (Mar 11, 2008)

very interesting. Regardless of whether Mr Holonyak was the "first" to make an LED, the fact that he made the first visible spectrum light LED is of great importance to, oh, I don't know, CANDLEPOWERFORUMS.

It's is a tragedy that Mr Holonyak's nationality becomes a way to somehow discredit his work, when in fact, all of us here have him to thank for starting the visible sector of light emitting diodes, upon which we invest our interest.

The fact that Mr Holonyak still goes to the gym at age 80 tells us that perhaps light doses of radiation may not be the worst thing to which one can expose himself


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## defloyd77 (Mar 11, 2008)

LightWalker said:


> You do not follow the Lord nor do you know him.
> 
> Idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the *lake* which burneth with *fire* and brimstone: which is the second death.
> Revelation 21:7-9



Well I'm screwed already so...

All praise thou who brought upon us the diode which emitith light:bow::bow:


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## cv3po (Mar 11, 2008)

Wow, we went from a happy factoid, that a member of our ranks knows a man who at the least was important in the work with LED's, to quoting revelation 

defloyd


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## slagell (Mar 11, 2008)

Flying Turtle said:


> I think Nick should immediately to granted nothing less than honorary "Flashaholic" status. Please tell him that he's suddenly got many thousand new friends. Maybe we should start a fund to send him a really nice light and a CPF t-shirt.
> 
> Geoff



Maybe I will get him a t-shirt. I didn't even know we had those.


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## slagell (Mar 11, 2008)

jave-mtr said:


> Hey slagell,
> are you an engineering faculty member at UIUC? I was there in 2003-04 and have been offered a PhD position starting this fall in Industrial Engineering. I have some other offers, so it will be a tough decision. Just wondering if I have a fellow flashaholic 'on the inside' :naughty:
> You can PM me if you don't want to disclose any details online! Thanks!



I work at the NCSA. http://www.slagell.org/


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## cv3po (Mar 11, 2008)

slagell said:


> Maybe I will get him a t-shirt. I didn't even know we had those.


 

Hmmm, me either. I just poked around but couldn't find 'em, this site is getting BIG. Can anyone point me to the order form for the shirts? Thanks


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## Zenster (Mar 11, 2008)

Cheapskate said:


> So Oleg Vladimirovich Losev invents the LED and everyone heres says all hail *Nick Holonyak Jr.*
> 
> *Wonder why that is. :shakehead*


 
Easy to understand if you understand that ALL technology is built upon technology that came before it.

One simple example is the guy who "invented" intermittant windshield wipers. He became a gazillionaire from the royalties he received from the car companies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns

BUT, don't for a moment think that the guy didn't use earlier technology that he put together to make his final invention that worked.

So while the Russian did his part in the history of LED's, it's Nic Holonyak who put that first discovery together _with other technology_ to "_make the first LED that _*worked*".

That's the history of technology, from the first guy who invented fire, all the way up to Openheimer who made the "ultimate" fire.
If you want to pick nits, you "could" say that the caveman who lit the first fire is the one who invented atomic fussion.


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## Alero (Mar 11, 2008)

Inventing something isn't the same as inventing the practical version. Nick Holonyak Jr gets full credit in my book! :twothumbs

Spend as much time with him as possible! Hey, why not do a video interview with him! I'm sure his family would really appreciate it! Maybe you could ask questions submitted here by us?!!! Then put it up on the net so we can see our new friend!!!

Let's put together a collection and get him a top-o-the-line Q5 something! Although, at age 80, his eyes will probably prefer the yellow incan spectrum more. Oh the irony!

You should print this thread out for him and show him, but delete the annoying posts that insult him. 
Oh, and why the Bible quotes? Sheesh! But as long as we're going there, I'll add mine:

In the beginning there was nothing, and God said "Let there be light!" and there was still nothing but now you could see it really good.


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## lumafist (Mar 11, 2008)

*I thing it`s awesome when you speak to "the elders" and get just a piece of their experience and knowledge....*

*really cool....!*



_Lightwalker: _
_it`s a shame you had to take it that way.._
_that was a really boring response._
_And btw, you do not know me at all._

I wish i could edit my post right off tha bat so this thread wouldn`t be clogged up with boring posts about this issue.

mods or admins: feel free to do so...:thumbsup:


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## LightBeing (Mar 11, 2008)

Nice! Nick's great !! It does say he invented the first 'PRACTICAL' LED. Not only that but : "invented the first practical LED (light emitting diode), the first visible-spectrum semiconductor laser and the household dimmer switch."
So the lasers we play with as well as that SCR or dimmer switch is Nick's too! Very cool !

:bow:


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## jtr1962 (Mar 11, 2008)

Didn't Al Gore invent the LED shortly after he invented the Internet? 

Just kidding of course. Kind of cool that you met someone who started it all. Granted, Oleg Vladimirovich Losev may have been the first to observe the phenomenom, but it seems the first one to invent a practical, working device is who ends up with the credit. It's a pity that LEDs were seen a little more than curiosities in the 1920s. Who knows, had things been different we might have had the first Luxeons in the 1950s or 1960s instead of the 1990s, and everyone today under about 30 might have only seen an incandescent lamp in a museum.


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## bfg9000 (Mar 11, 2008)

Gee, nobody thinks about the 22 people before Edison who "invented" (more like discovered) electric incandescent lamps either. That's because Thomas Edison was first to develop a lamp system with enough efficiency and lifespan to actually be of practical use.

Cheers to Nick! Maybe a CPF G2 with a dropin?


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## AvPD (Mar 11, 2008)

Perhaps you could suggest the idea of writing about the history of the development of LEDs, even just a blog article to get some good information out there. I read an article on LED history on the LED museum site, I'm sure Nick Holonyak could write a more definitve account.


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## slagell (Mar 11, 2008)

Turns out the people who started Lumileds are a bunch of Nick's grad students.


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## lumafist (Mar 11, 2008)

AvPD said:


> Perhaps you could suggest the idea of writing about the history of the development of LEDs, even just a blog article to get some good information out there. I read an article on LED history on the LED museum site, I'm sure Nick Holonyak could write a more definitve account.


 

*Wow.......!!!*

*that would be awesome and very nice indeed......*


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## slagell (Mar 11, 2008)

AvPD said:


> Perhaps you could suggest the idea of writing about the history of the development of LEDs, even just a blog article to get some good information out there. I read an article on LED history on the LED museum site, I'm sure Nick Holonyak could write a more definitve account.



He said some of his students wrote a very nice historical paper about the LED. I'll have to find out where to get it.


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## FrogsInWinter (Mar 11, 2008)

That is way cool. Mr. Holonyak definitely needs to see this forum.


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## EntropyQ3 (Mar 11, 2008)

I hope he gets a kick out of seeing how his invention is taken further and further. And that he will be around for another 10 years at least to see it gain even more widespread use and recognition for its unique advantages.


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## Icebreak (Mar 11, 2008)

slagel -

That's a terrific experience. Thanks for telling us about it. Wow.


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## Ken_McE (Mar 11, 2008)

LightWalker said:


> Idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the *lake* which burneth with *fire* and brimstone:



So if I understand correctly, you're saying that hell has strictly incandescent lighting? 
FSM preserve us all...:devil:


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## Darell (Mar 11, 2008)

I don't think the guy looks like a sailor at all!


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## TorchBoy (Mar 12, 2008)

That's it, I'm unsubscribed.


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## kavvika (Mar 12, 2008)

Whoa, very cool! I go to Bradley but visit U of I every so often. Who knows, maybe I'll bump into him sometime!?


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## easilyled (Mar 12, 2008)

LightWalker said:


> You do not follow the Lord nor do you know him.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yawn! 

This is Candle-Power-Forums, not Christian-Politicize-Forums. 

These fundamentalists are tiresome.


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## cqbdude (Mar 12, 2008)

Awesome Idea...give the guy an led light.....:candle:


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## Lightingguy321 (Mar 12, 2008)

Nick Holynak's paper is published in one of the IEEE spectrum magazines, can't remember which issue, but it was within the last 3-4 years.


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## slagell (Mar 12, 2008)

Lightingguy321 said:


> Nick Holynak's paper is published in one of the IEEE spectrum magazines, can't remember which issue, but it was within the last 3-4 years.



That is the article called "Red Hot" which Nick calls a bunch of propaganda. The one he was talking about is in submission now.


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## diff_lock2 (Mar 13, 2008)

easilyled said:


> Yawn!
> 
> This is Candle-Power-Forums, not Christian-Politicize-Forums.
> 
> These fundamentalists are tiresome.



I thought it was a joke. I guess not.


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## easilyled (Mar 13, 2008)

diff_lock2 said:


> I thought it was a joke. I guess not.



Don't let LightWalker see your sig-line, or you'll really be in trouble. 
50 terrible deaths will await you. :green:


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## Bimmerboy (Mar 14, 2008)

Religious implications aside, this is one HELL of a cool thread! 

Slagell - It'd be quite understandable if Mr. Holonyak has no desire to jump onto CPF to receive all the praise he's due, but would it be safe for us to at least assume he's at least heard of this discussion taking place?

Edit: If there was ever a reason to revive the CPF T-shirt, this is it... to give one to Nick... and the fact I'd buy a bunch to give out next Christmas. :laughing:

:bow: to Nick Holonyak, and :candle: to CPF T-shirts.


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## slagell (Mar 14, 2008)

Bimmerboy said:


> Religious implications aside, this is one HELL of a cool thread!
> 
> Slagell - It'd be quite understandable if Mr. Holonyak has no desire to jump onto CPF to receive all the praise he's due, but would it be safe for us to at least assume he's at least heard of this discussion taking place?
> 
> ...



I don't think he has visited the site. He doesn't respond to my e-mails by e-mail, but he reads them and talks to me about them in the locker room. He is kind of a work-a-holic.

Anyway, I told him about the site and that he had a following or something to that effect there, and we might get him a t-shirt. I didn't mention a specific thread or anything, but I said people were interested in that historical paper his students are publishing.


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## Essexman (Mar 15, 2008)

Wow great thread.

Seeing as James Brown is no longer with us, you could say your friend is the new _godfather of _*Seoul. *



[Disclaimer: no offence intended to any James Brown fans, please don't flame me.]


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## cave dave (Mar 15, 2008)

I graduated from UIUC in 1991, but haven't invented a thing 

I think Data is a grad too, at least he knows about Papa Dels Pizza. If you get a chance, buy Nick a slice or two of Papa Dels and send the bill to me! Oh wait all that cheese might reduce his longevity, just sent the whole Pizza to me!


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## Bimmerboy (Mar 15, 2008)

Essexman said:


> Seeing as James Brown is no longer with us, you could say your friend is the new _godfather of _*Seoul. *


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