Personal & Professional
BACKGROUND
Charles K. Kao
Meet Charles Kao, the developer of fiber optic telecommunication technology. For many years long-distance communications were constrained due to poor fibers which were unable to transmit light far enough. In the 1960s, Charles utilized very pure glass fiber and new laser technology which allowed for sufficient light transfer which enabled modern day fiber optic communications. This achievement led Charles to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009.
“Transmission of light through glass is an old, old idea. It had been used in past years to shine light for entertainment, for decoration, for short distances for surgery, through a glass rod, but it had not been possible to use it over the long distances required for telephony. Light passing through a rod of glass just fades out to nothing after a very short distance of a few feet. Efforts by many research laboratories to find a way to transmit light over long distances were desperate as the public, prompted by media reports of hopeful technical advances, were expecting more and more exotic services.
I played around with what was causing the failure of light to penetrate glass. With the invention of the laser in the 1950s and subsequent developments, there was an ideal source of light that could send out pulse of light in a digital stream of noughts and ones, represented by off and on states of the pulse.
Ideas do not always come in a flash, but by diligent trial-and-error experiments that take time and thought.”
