City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics
City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics
City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics
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300 NOTES TO PAGES 119–123<br />
that provided an interface between phone lines (hooked to remote computers) and<br />
home television screens. Videotex arrived at the same time as the personal computer,<br />
which rendered it obsolete. Ironically, some features <strong>of</strong> the graphically oriented<br />
World Wide Web clearly derive from videotex.<br />
8. ‘‘It failed to take <strong>of</strong>f so decisively,’’ recalls Roger Heckingbottom, interview,<br />
Dec. 1, 1994.<br />
9. Charles Kao, ‘‘Historical notes on optical fiber communications,’’ unpublished<br />
manuscript, with notes.<br />
10. Full name provided by Institution <strong>of</strong> Electrical Engineers, Archives<br />
dept.<br />
11. Don Williams (telephone interview, Sept. 9, 1994) said he ‘‘looked after<br />
all sorts <strong>of</strong> odd topics.’’<br />
12. Clive Day, interview, Dec. 1, 1994. <strong>The</strong> project was a novel scheme for<br />
storing data at the sites <strong>of</strong> atomic dislocations in crystals.<br />
13. Dyott, telephone interview, Jan. 23, 1995; Clive Day, interview, Dec. 1,<br />
1994.<br />
14. <strong>The</strong> Post Office lab took pride in beating the better-funded Bell Labs. <strong>The</strong><br />
property is called Faraday rotation, in which applying a magnetic field to a material<br />
called a ferrite rotates the plane <strong>of</strong> polarization <strong>of</strong> the microwaves (information<br />
provided by IEE Archives dept.).<br />
15. Heckingbottom, interview.<br />
16. Charles Sandbank telephone interview, Sept. 7, 1994.<br />
17. Robert Maurer, interview, Mar. 7, 1995.<br />
18. Williams telephone interview.<br />
19. W. A. Gambling, ‘‘Optical fibres: the Southampton scene,’’ IEE Proceedings<br />
133J No. 3, pp. 205–210 (June 1986).<br />
20. Kao, ‘‘Historical notes’’ (p. 20).<br />
21. Martin Chown, interview, Dec. 2, 1994, and telephone interview Nov. 15,<br />
1994.<br />
22. Eric Spitz, telephone interview, Feb. 14, 1996. Spitz thinks the visit came<br />
in 1964 or 1965, but the involvement <strong>of</strong> Roberts indicates it could not have been<br />
before 1966.<br />
23. Shojiro Kawakami, ‘‘<strong>The</strong> early days <strong>of</strong> optical fiber communication research,’’<br />
Optoelectronics—Devices and Technologies 1, No. 2, pp. 125–136 (Dec.<br />
1986).<br />
24. Miller’s idea was a theoretical extension <strong>of</strong> work on millimeter and confocal<br />
waveguides, which also applied to fibers. From a theoretical standpoint, a<br />
graded-index waveguide is merely the limiting case <strong>of</strong> infinitely thin lenses spaced<br />
infinitesimally close together. Stewart E. Miller, US Patent 3,434,774, ‘‘Waveguide<br />
for millimeter and optical waves,’’ filed Feb. 2, 1965, as division <strong>of</strong> application<br />
filed Feb. 25, 1964; issued Mar. 25, 1969.<br />
25. Kao, ‘‘Historical notes’’ (pp. 20–21).<br />
26. Richard B. Dyott, ‘‘Some memories.’’<br />
27. Heckingbottom, interview, Dec. 1, 1994.<br />
28. Richard B. Dyott, ‘‘Some memories.’’<br />
29. Ibid.<br />
30. Dyott telephone interview, Jan. 23, 1995.<br />
31. Chown interview; Laszlo Solymar, personal communication. <strong>The</strong> precise<br />
chain <strong>of</strong> command at STL varied over the years when fibers were being developed,<br />
and Reeves functioned more as a technical consultant than a line manager, es-