This is Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Permanent Secretary Stefan Normark.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to vote the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics

to Professor Isomo Akaz at May University, Nagoya, and Nagoya

University Japan, Professor Hiroshi Amano at Nagoya University of California,

for the University of California, Santa Barbara

for the invention of efficient blue light emitting diodes

which has enabled bright and energy saving white light sources.

Professor Betel Singh will now give us a short summary.

Red and green LEDs have been around for many years, but the blue was really missing. This lamp contains three LEDs, one red, one green and one blue. If you combine these colors, you get white light.

This is something that Isaac Newton showed already in 1671. Thanks to the blue LED, we can now get white light sources which have very high energy efficiency and very long lifetime.

This LED technology is now replacing older technologies.

In fact, many of you carry this technology in your pocket.

The flashlight and also the screen of modern smartphones uses LED technology.

For a more in-depth listen about the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics,

look for the Scientific American Science Talk Podcast later this morning.

For Scientific Americans 60 Second Science, I'm Steve Mursky.