ئەکادیمیا قوتابی

Fibre Optics

Until a few years ago, most international phone signals were sent via satellite. However, fibre optics is now being used much more to carry communications. The thin glass fibres, which can transmit a signal at the speed of light, are not a new invention. For example, they were used in the Photophone by Alexander Graham Bell, who had earlier invented the telephone.

From the early 20th century, these thin glass fibres became important in medicine for the purpose of looking inside the human body.

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The next big step came in the 1960s and 70s. It was then that scientists improved the technology in order to use it over long distances. NASA, which regarded fibre optics as ‘top secret’, used it on the Apollo spacecraft that landed on the moon in 1969.

Although the basic internet already existed, the modern digital age began with the first website in 1991. But the internet only really took off globally after 2000. Today, underground and underwater fibre optic cables reach around the world. With the use of this new technology, internet speeds are certain to increase far into the future.

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Inventors

British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web in 1991, did so to share research information with other scientists more efficiently. Though billions of dollars are made through it, Berners-Lee gave it to the world for free.

Alexander Graham Bell, although famous for inventing the telephone in 1875, produced many other ideas. His Photophone, for example, introduced the use of basic fibre optics in 1880.

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Internet

Before the late 1970s, there was no internet: now there is no escape from it. It was first developed so that scientists could share information more easily, but far wider uses for it were soon found. With millions of websites such as Wikipedia, which is a free encyclopedia, the internet remains a wonderful source of information. You can also now buy almost anything online from shopping websites.

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And that is not all. There are in addition various social sites, which people join so as to chat to friends or to people with similar interests. Again, the internet supports education, for example with SchoolNet, which provides both information and interactive sites for schools to share. It was first developed in Canada so as to bring the outside world to schools in small communities across this huge country. Teachers had to build a system that connected schools and libraries, and also check, choose and create over 5,000 suitable websites. After ten years’ work, it was launched in 1999, and it was a big success. Today, SchoolNet has gone global and helps 2,000,000 students in 34 countries.

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