What has Japan invented?

[Jack]

There are many inventions that are credited to China like gun powder, ink, printing press, porcelain...; Egyptians for mathematics and alphabet; Americans with cars, airplanes and everything else. Is there an invention that is of Japanese origin?

[baka tono]

natto

[drpepper]

Don't think Americans invented the car... I think the Japanese invented the CD though.. and of course they invented pretty much everything Japanese too! (sushi, samurai, ninja, etc..)

[Jack]

I was thinking about things that are not really cultural but major inventions that the world at large uses today. Electricity, telephone, mathematics, computers, airplanes, cars... Anyway, no big deal, I was just curious.

[Tsuru]

I think it was the Romans who invented concrete, so they can't take credit for that... apart from that I have absolutely no idea.

I recall someone saying, perhaps it was over on this board, that the West has always been very good at fundamental physics, while Japan is good at the applied variety... example: the basic principle of the LCD was invented by a Frenchman in the 1900s, but it was the Japanese who brought LCD to the masses in the form of display units you can buy at Dixons.

[Charles]

Calculus.

[IkemenTommy]

Sony

[Rob Pongi]

Well, of course you've heard of the one and only Doctor Nakamatsu:



who claims to have invented some 2300+ contraptions et al including the now virtually useless floppy disk!

(And, you just gotta love that bowtie! ;O)

[Greji]

Yellow taxis!

[Mulboyne]

A serious recent example would be the blue LED.