LED Forty Years Older Than Thought

LED lover writes "The discovery of the LED is usually credited to four US groups in 1962, but an unrecognized Russian genius got there forty years before. Oleg Losev even filed a patent on using his device for long range communications, and wrote to Einstein to ask for help with the theory — but got no reply."

Comments

What's next.. ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess,
the first man in space was Russian as well...

Re:Henry Round the real inventor?

[laejoh]

He published only a very short note

something like: I discovered that semiconductors can produce light, I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain?

Lightbulb!

[Liquidscript]

So LEDs precede thought? No wonder people always draw light bulbs over people's heads when they get an idea.

Russians invent everything.

[Grashnak]

Those of you who remember the good old cold war days will recall that the Soviets can be credited with inventing the LED, television, ramen noodles, california rolls, snow tires, the hanging curveball, and pants.

Re:Russians invent everything.

[sehlat]

I seem to remember there was a line about this in Tolstoy's "Hamlet."

Re:How often does this happen?

[Waffle Iron]

Light emitted by a diode is a common side effect, usually undesirable.

While using a glass diode in my 150-in-1 kit, I independently discovered bright white LEDs about 30 years ago. The only problem is that the light only lasted about 1/2 second, and then it was followed by a little puff of smoke.

Re:How often does this happen?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Looks like you invented the SED. Did you patent it?

So...

[thedeadswiss]

So, we were misLED...

Re:How often does this happen?

[zero_offset]

a free market with a single Venture Capitalist (the state party chairman) through whom ALL requests for money to develop an invention must go through

You have a... "unique" definition of the word "free".