City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

NOTES TO PAGES 59–65 289
75. Brian O’Brien, US Patent 2,825,260, ‘‘Optical image forming devices,’’
filed Nov. 19, 1954, issued Mar. 4, 1958.
76. H. H. Hopkins interview. In fact, Hansell’s patent would have been a more
serious obstacle than Baird’s.
77. H. H. Hopkins and N. S. Kapany, ‘‘Transparent fibres for the transmission
of optical images,’’ Optica Acta 1, No. 4, pp. 164–170, Feb. 1955.
78. H. H. Hopkins telephone interview.
79. See, e.g., ‘‘Narinder Kapany: photonics polymath,’’ Photonics Spectra, Aug.
1982, p. 59.
80. H. H. Hopkins, ‘‘Fiber optic origins,’’ and reply from N. S. Kapany, Photonics
Spectra, letters column, Nov. 1982. In his reply, Kapany wrote, ‘‘I lay no
paternity claim to the field of fiber optics.’’ The published version of Hopkins’s
letter was edited to moderate its tone.
81. N. S. Kapany, curriculum vitae, p. 1.
82. H. H. Hopkins, telephone interview.
83. Kapany, telephone interview.
Chapter 6
1. Basil I. Hirschowitz, ‘‘A personal history of the fiberscope,’’ Gastroenterology
76, pp. 864–869 (1979) p. 864.
2. H. H. Hopkins and N. S. Kapany, ‘‘A flexible fiberscope, using static scanning,’’
Nature 173, pp. 39–41 (Jan. 2, 1954).
3. H. H. Hopkins, telephone interview, Mar. 1, 1994. His feud with Kapany
also may have discouraged him.
4. Henk J. Raterink says it stopped by 1956 or 1957 (letter to author, Feb.
14, 1994); Beernink says it stopped in 1954 (G. J. Beernink, ‘‘The Delft cradle of
glass fiber optics’’ (in Dutch), Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Fotonica, Dec. 1981, pp. 7–
10, (translated by Adriaan Walther).
5. Beernink, ‘‘The Delft cradle.’’
6. He was alerted to these papers by his mentor at Central Middlesex Hospital
in London, Sir Francis Avery Jones. Avery Jones, letter to Martin Carey, July 21,
1989.
7. Strictly speaking, endoscopes can inspect any part of the body, while gastroscopes
are intended only to inspect the stomach. However, gastroscopes are
often called endoscopes.
8. Hirschowitz, ‘‘A personal history.’’
9. Lawrence E. Curtiss, telephone interview, Feb. 7, 1994.
10. Curtiss, telephone interview, Feb. 7, 1994.
11. Hirschowitz, ‘‘A personal history.’’
12. Lawrence E. Curtiss, letter to author, Dec. 9, 1994.
13. Mary Jo Peters, telephone interview, Jan. 26, 1996.
14. Credit for the invention of the glass-clad fiber eventually became the subject
of a long and bitter court fight, which Curtiss won. Board of Patent Interferences,
U.S. Patent Office, Patent Interference No. 93,002, Norton v. Curtiss: Fiber
Optical Components Final Hearing Jun. 1, 1967, paper No. 101.
15. A. C. S. van Heel, ‘‘A new method of transporting optical images without
aberrations,’’ Nature 173, p. 39 (Jan. 2, 1954)
16. Will Hicks interview, Feb. 4, 1994.
17. Ibid.