fiber optics

We live in a world designed by Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle, and George E. Smith. Their work on the physics of light made possible the fiber optic cables carrying this web page to your phone, and the digital camera on the other side. And on December 10th, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden will award them the Nobel Prize in physics for their work.

If it were up to us, everything would be faster by at least one order of magnitude, but the laws of physics often get in the way of unlimited speed and efficiency. Take fiber optic data transfer: the pulses of light carrying data through the worldwide network of fiber optics move really fast, but alas, cannot go any faster than they do. However, scientists at Cornell University have figured out a way to pack more data into those pulses of light, using a system they're calling a "time telescope," which has the potential to increase fiber optic data speeds by 27 times.

Despite the fact that optical cables transmit data far faster than copper wire, wire is still the primary medium for communication on computer chips, and between computers and devices through USB cables. But Intel hopes to change all that soon with their new Light Peak connection system.

There was a time when a camera was its own thing. Now my phone's a camera, my computer's a camera, and it looks like pretty soon my pants could be a camera too. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a thread with bundles of photo-sensitive fiber optic cables inside. The cables transmit light back to a computer, effectively turning each thread into a camera.

1. Einstein showed that light travels in bundles called quanta, which are at
the heart of the light-emitting diode. When electrons in a semiconductor-based diode move from one side to another, they shift to a less excited state, releasing energy in the form of photons. Channel these, and you get a bright, long-lasting light source.

2. In 1917 Einstein demonstrated that when a photon comes into contact with an atom, it can trigger a chain-reaction release of additional photons from