Dr. NakaMats Is the World's Most Prolific Inventor

MMBK writes to share an interesting look at Dr. "NakaMats" Nakamatsu, mastermind behind a world-record 3,000 patents. The 81-year-old scientist has inventions like the "PyonPyon" spring shoes, the karaoke machine, and others. He's also at least partly to blame for things like the digital watch, the floppy disk, and CDs. "Dr. Nakamatsu harbors other ambitions too: in 2007, he took his penchant for political campaigning to a new level, becoming a candidate in the gubernatorial election in Tokyo, and the election for the Upper House. Although he failed to get a seat, Dr. NakaMats has other tricks up his sleeve. In 2005 he was awarded the Ig Nobel prize for Nutrition, for photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting). By the time he dies at the age of 144 (a goal he maintains with an elaborate daily ritual that rejuvenates his body and triggers his creative process), he intends to patent 6,000 inventions."

Comments

He also invented the first post

[Anonymous Coward]

[Removed for patent infringement]

Hamburger Earmuffs

[Will2k_is_here]

I don't think he's invented Hamburger Earmuffs (TM) yet. He's likely still struggling with the pickle matrix.

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[Nick Number]

I don't think he's invented Hamburger Earmuffs (TM) yet. He's likely still struggling with the pickle matrix.

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your pickle and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[derGoldstein]

I feel this way about /. too sometimes...

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[maxume]

There's really no good reason to lick your computer.

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[Nick Number]

You know, I know this pickle doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, Slashdot is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious.

After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[An ominous Cow art]

What if it's a PowerMac?

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[Sulphur]

There's really no good reason to lick your computer.

Then there will be no more of this "My computer can lick your computer"

then?

Re:Hamburger Earmuffs

[Hurricane78]

Who needs Hamburger Earmuffs, if you can lie in a cozy... let’s just say: In Soviet Russia, hamburger eats YOU!

Unless he's invented

[afidel]

A way to cap telomere's he's not going to see 144. Antioxidants can keep in-gene encoding errors low but when the telomere's unravel there's nothing we can currently do to reverse the effects.

Re:Unless he's invented

[Gerafix]

He's Japanese, just give him some used electronics, a paper clip, and some used panties and he'll whip up a Super Fun Time Telomere Re-Raveler.

Re:Unless he's invented

[Jay L]

he's not going to see 144

Man, you people complain when projects are behind schedule, you complain when projects are -ahead- of schedule... Slashdotters are never happy.

Re:Unless he's invented

[interkin3tic]

A way to cap telomere's he's not going to see 144. Antioxidants can keep in-gene encoding errors low but when the telomere's unravel there's nothing we can currently do to reverse the effects.

I'm going to need a citation for the rate here to prove he wouldn't be able to make it to 144. One person lived to 122. I have no idea what she eventually died of, but I don't see any evidence to suggest that 22 more years would be impossible due to telomere shortening. How fast the telomere burns down until further cell proliferation is no longer possible, how many divisions this requires, and how many divisions are happening in the important tissues per year? Because I don't think most of those things are known or even necessarily estimated, and I'd be suprised as all heck if that estimate suggested somewhere between 122 and 144.

While it's quite obvious he won't live to infinity, I've never seen anything to indicate that his intestinal stem cells, for example, are going to be exhausted before the age of 144. The current textbook model for intestinal stem cells is that they divide rarely, and when they do they usually produce one stem cell and one transiently amplifying cell that divides like mad to actually produce the terminal cells that don't proliferate further. So while there are now maybe 200 cells from that one cell division, the stem cell that is going to continue has only effectively divided once.

Furthermore, cell proliferation doesn't happen in the entire adult body. You brain cells for example don't continue diving and would not be directly limited by telomere shortening.

That being said, I kind of doubt that antioxidants are going to keep him from getting cancer or heart disease, or dying of an accident.

Re:Unless he's invented

[afidel]

Actually keeping you from getting cancer is exactly what antioxidants are good for. Neurons do in fact divide (or at least we now know new neurons do grow, not sure if the genesis of that growth is known). The upper bound on divisions for cells appears to be about 50 (known as the Hayflick limit) which is speculated to be at the heart of current human maximum lifespan with other factors causing the majority of deaths before the limit is reached for key stem cells.

Re:Unless he's invented

[interkin3tic]

Neurons do in fact divide (or at least we now know new neurons do grow, not sure if the genesis of that growth is known).

Some of that is in fact known, it's not the neurons dividing, it's a niche of neuronal stem cells (not neurons themselves) producing new neurons. Notably, it's the subventricular zone and the subgranular zone. The SVZ for certain and the subgranular zone I'm pretty sure don't contain mature neurons. The proliferative cells of the SVZ are well known to not be neurons. In fact, several factors that seem to be important to actually being a mature neuron appear to stop the cell cycle and prevent cell division, suggesting that a cell is a neuron, it won't be dividing, and if it's dividing, it's not exactly a neuron. Then again, we could have already found an exception to that rule that I don't know about.

Those sites of proliferation might also dry up as a result of telomere shortening, but the mature neurons already present would not be affected as they're not dividing. We also haven't found a function yet for adult neurogenesis, although I've read interesting speculation that "chemo brain" or loss of mental sharpness when taking chemotherapy might be a result of that.

Anyway, neurons of the brain really don't seem to divide, and telomere shortening isn't directly going to kill your neurons before the age of 144.

The upper bound on divisions for cells appears to be about 50 (known as the Hayflick limit) which is speculated to be at the heart of current human maximum lifespan with other factors causing the majority of deaths before the limit is reached for key stem cells.

That is interesting, but 50 cell divisions does not appear to prevent a person from living to 122, I suspect that isn't going to limit a person to below 144 either.

Re:Unless he's invented

[TheKidWho]

insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

TFA is a video.

[bughunter]

Warning: TFA is a video with a summary that's got little more than what's in the submission: Naka is obsessive about his food, and wants to run for office.

I know I'm not the only one who doesn't have patience for video articles. It's like sitting in class waiting for the teacher to explain every concept at the speed of the slowest learner in class. I can read a written article in 1/5th the time it takes me to watch a video.

Besides. Video is so twentieth century.

(My lawn. You're standing on it.)

Quit with the fucking

[Anonymous Coward]

starting sentences in your subject line the continuing them in your post. Damn is that irritating.

Most prolific? I doubt it.

[ffflala]

He's got nothing on Shampoo.

Re:Most prolific? I doubt it.

[Hucko]

I don't know what *caffeinated* soap is. Another TV show that hasn't been imported to Australia?

Correction

[bit01]

He is not necessarily the world's most prolific inventor but simply the one with the most patents. They are not the same thing despite what the patent lobby would have you believe.

---

Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.

Re:Correction

[afidel]

Even still it's pretty damn impressive considering Edison who had an entire research and development team working for him only had 1093 patents!

Re:Correction

[ColdWetDog]

Edison who had an entire research and development team working for him only had 1093 patents!

However, those were the days when patents meant something. You had to walk to the patent office uphill both ways. It always snowed. You had to type your submissions.

And those funny little drawings? By hand. In the dark.

More info about his lifestyle

[y4ku]

I found an article detailing this daily regiment of his. I don't know how good sleeping only 4 hours a night and getting nourishment from a powder composed of 55 essential nutrients is. Here it is: http://www.brainsturbator.com/articles/yoshiro_nakamatsu_we_salute_you/ Fascinating man.

Re:More info about his lifestyle

[nido]

That's a very interesting article - thanks for sharing.

There were two parts that I think are very important. The first is about his inventive process:

Inventing is a Dangerous Business

What really sold me on Dr. Nakamats was when I came across the following passage from some German interview. The question was one the author has probably asked hundreds of times--"so, where do you get your ideas?"--and Nakamatsu has the last answer anyone but him would ever suspect:

(picture of person holding their breath underwater)
Is there a secret to becoming an inventor? How do you come up with new ideas?

        I am teaching philosophy at the University of Tokyo. The base for everything is a strong spirit, followed by a strong body, hard studies, experience and finally leads to a "trigger" experience. You "trigger" a bullet which contains spirit, body, study and experience - and finally that releases the actual invention.

How do you "trigger" an invention?

        A lack of oxygen is very important.

A lack? Isn't that dangerous?

        It's very dangerous. I get that Flash just 0.5 sec before death. I remain under the surface until this trigger comes up and I write it down with a special waterproof plexiglas writing pad I invented.

Do you do that a lot? Putting yourself in that kind of situation to come up with a new invention?

        Of course. This is the Dr. Nakamatsu method.

U.S. Creativity expert Win Wenger, PhD talks about the mammalian diving response as a way for anyone to increase blood flow to the brain, thereby increasing one's intelligence. When the Co2 concentration in a mammal's blood rises, arteries to the brain open up so that the brain doesn't starve to death. With repetition, the arteries become permanently enlarged.

I myself have spent some time holding my breath underwater at the pool. I haven't done the full 30-day protocol, but at one point I built up to over 2 minutes underwater. This is not a lot (the record for free diving is over 19 minutes), but many people can only hold their breath for 15 seconds...

Furthermore, we had a pool in our backyard when I was a kid (before I turned 5), and I remember doing held-breath underwater swimming then. I'd dive down to pick stuff up off the bottom of the pool, and swim through underwater rings.

Furthermore, I had a VHS copy of Star Trek IV, and I repeatedly tried to hold my breath for the entire time that Captain Kirk (or was it Mr. Spock?) held his breath to release the whales, after the bird of prey crashed into San Francisco Bay... I was never able to do it, but I now think the effort was good for something.

I don't know that I'm a genius now, but I think I do pretty well.

According to Dr. NakaMats' research, the unhealthy body has a poor blood circulation to extremities resulting cold feet. This is the same state with the stressed body in which your sympathetic nervous system took over parasympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic nervous system anticipates your body for "fight-or-flight" situation.

My hands were cold as ice for a long time... Then I built a "radial appliance", which is said to balance the body's parasympathetic nervous system. My hands are now warm.

I think my website (above) links to the radial appliance stuff... This is kooky esoteric shit, so don't bother clicking if you just want to scoff...

Anyways, thanks again for the link!

Re:More info about his lifestyle

[Thing 1]

This is actually very interesting! I had friends in college who could smoke a prodigious amount of dope, holding the hits for super-long times, and they excelled in their classes. I wonder if part of it was training their vessels and capillaries to be wider, by increasing the CO2 concentration? That's ... pretty far out.

Re:Bah

[frosty_tsm]

I'm feeling vitriolic, so I'll start the trolling thread: Having a sheer amount of parents simply means that he's a frequent flier at the the parent office.

I don't think that's how it works; 2 is the max. However, having a sheer amount of children means he's a frequent flier of something else and not a fan of protection. :-)

Please mod

[Anonymous Coward]

this guy way up. I hate that too.

It's called a "title bar", not a "start your sentence here bar".

Re:Bah

[Dishevel]

anyone who even participated in the popularization of karaoke should be tried by an international court.

Tried. Fuck that. Nuke the bastard from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:Wait...what?

[vadim_t]

Ig Nobel (note the Ig) prizes are awarded for weird, but actual research. Unless there was some scientific value to your organization of shoes you wouldn't get one. His photographing of his food is at very least interesting for nutrition. It looks like he also did some sort of analysis on it, though I can't find what exactly. So, this is actually a very long running study, and not just an OCD thing.

Stop whining -- it cou

[Anonymous Coward]

ld be a lot worse.

Lack of Oxygen

[Prien715]

Now this is just weird:

How do you “trigger” an invention?
A lack of oxygen is very important.

A lack? Isn’t that dangerous?
It’s very dangerous. I get that Flash just 0.5 sec before death. I remain under the surface until this trigger comes up and I write it down with a special waterproof plexiglas writing pad I invented.

From This longer article

Re:Lack of Oxygen

[derGoldstein]

Kids today are doing something completely different just prior to choking.
(if you got that reference, I'm almost as sorry for you as I am for me)

I will never forgive him

[93 Escort Wagon]

I believe there's a special place in hell reserved for the inventor of the karaoke machine. I'm pretty sure it was even mentioned in Dante's Inferno - he walked past a "reserved for..." sign just before seeing Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot.

Call me skeptical

[osgeek]

Okay, the guy is 81. I hate to rip on him too much, but it really seems like he's mostly known for submitting patents.

None of the floppy disk history that I looked up mentioned anything about him except that IBM has some deal with him to prevent a "conflict". Patent troll? The CD history I glanced through didn't mention him either. At best, I think he could say that he made some minor contribution to the CD - not that he had invented it. The video showed a bunch of his other inventions, like a magical chair that makes you more creative or something. He mentioned that a US cancer patient wanted to sit in it. And that proves what? Quack quack quack.

Then he's ragging on Edison in the video... a guy who actually invented useful shit.

Seems like a bit of a whack job with an image of himself out of proportion to what he's actually accomplished.

Re:Call me skeptical

[gad_zuki!]

Thank you for this post. This guy's been making the rounds again, and everytime he's been shown to be a borderline nut and a chronic patent applyer. Getting a patent is simply a matter of money, not ability, talent, or creativity. Apple has patents on sliding your finger across a touch screen and Amazon has its infamous one-click patent. Companies like Tivo find it more profitable to sue over patents than to actually sell a product.

This guy represents nothing but the lax process of getting a patent mixed in with some medical quackery.

You m

[ean li]

ke this?

Skip the video and read

[G00F]

The linked is a video that takes to long to watch, read this one instead.

http://www.wishtank.org/magazine/commons/yoshiro_nakamatsu_we_salute_you1

Filing a patent != invention

[chainLynx]

This guy sounds like the most prolific patent filer, not necessarily the most prolific inventor.

.siht ekil ,ta

[turing_m]

ht ekil ton , oN