A 48-year-old man, broke and out of work, built a shed in his backyard. For a year he barely slept, chasing one idea: a noodle you could cook with nothing but hot water. His name was Momofuku Ando. The year was 1958, in a small Japanese city near Osaka. The breakthrough came while watching his wife fry tempura. The hot oil pushed the water out of the batter. That was it. Flash-fry the noodles, and they keep for months. He was 48 when he started. Most people would call that too late. Today the world eats over 100 billion servings of instant noodles a year. From one shed. From one man who refused to quit.