City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

11
Breakthrough
The Clearest Glass in the World
(1966–1972)
If you do something different from what everybody else is
doing, you’ve got two advantages. One is that you may
succeed where they fail, of course, but even if you fail you
will gather information that they don’t gather. [That] will
give you some insights into what might follow
—Robert Maurer 1
We never told anyone where we were, and I had always
assumed that everybody was coming along about the
same way we were.
—Robert Maurer 2
F rom his first-floor office at the Corning Sullivan Park Research Center, Bob
Maurer could see the clear and compelling logic in making fibers from
compound glasses. The materials were well known, and the technology for
handling them was well developed. Removing the impurities that absorbed
light seemed a straightforward matter of purifying raw materials. The approach
was so logical that everyone was doing it, including companies with
resources far greater than the Corning Glass Works. It was a race Corning
seemed doomed to lose.
Never one to pick the beaten path, Maurer looked for alternatives. His
native caution warned him to be careful in picking long shots. He wanted to
take advantage of Corning’s extensive expertise in glass technology. Fused
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