On the 7th October, 2014, the Royal Swedish Science Academy nominated the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2014. The winners were Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, the three Japanese scientists who invented the blue LED light which, added to the already existing red and green ones, permitted the production of the luminous and cheaper white light.
Mentioning the Academy: “The incandescent light bulb lightened the XXth Century; the XXIst Century shall be lighted by LED bulbs” and “to grant this reward for a an area which is more for application than fundamental would have pleased Alfred Nobel”, as he gave his preference to “inventions which would benefit mankind".