City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

A CRITICAL INSIGHT 59
age transmission only in passing. His bundles contained only several hundred
fibers, enough to demonstrate the idea without elaborate winding machines.
In contrast, Hopkins and Kapany assembled bundles containing many more
fibers, but their fibers were unclad.
Neither paper was quite sufficient by itself. Yet taken together, the two
papers in one of the world’s most widely read scientific journals launched
modern fiber optics.
Aftermath
In America, the angry O’Brien realized that van Heel had set the clock running
on his patent claims; he had to file within a year of the first publication
of the idea. He pressed American Optical lawyers to file. Shortly after the
Nature paper appeared, van Heel belatedly sent reprints of the Dutch article,
which the Americans had never seen. An American Optical engineer translated
it, confirming what O’Brien could see from the English abstract and the
illustrations, that van Heel had written about clad fibers. 74 The reprints had
‘‘De Ingenieur, No. 24, 1953’’ printed on the cover but were undated inside.
Someone hand-wrote the publication date on O’Brien’s copy: ‘‘12/6/53.’’
Thinking the paper had appeared late in the year, the lawyers filed O’Brien’s
application November 19, 1954, and in due time he received a US patent. 75
Hopkins consulted a London law firm about patenting image transmission.
However, an elderly partner recalled Baird’s 1927 patent, which he thought
would preempt Hopkins. With little money to waste on a losing battle, Hopkins
gave up on patents. 76 He and Kapany worked on fiber bundles through
1954, eventually making a 30-inch (75-centimeter) bundle. 77 They developed
faster winding machines, a practical necessity when one bundle included 30
miles (50 kilometers) of fiber. They analyzed light collection and transmission,
but never tested claddings.
Even without a patent, Hopkins sought an industrial partner that could
offer the resources needed for further development: ‘‘glass technologists, precision
machinists, and cooperation with a traditional endoscope maker.’’
However, the eminent young professor had no more commercial success than
Møller Hansen, and he concluded the companies were ‘‘dead from the neck
up.’’ 78
Kapany and Hopkins fell to quarreling even before the ink was dry on
Kapany’s 1955 dissertation on fiber optics. Hopkins complained that Kapany
claimed too much credit for the concept. 79 Kapany admits he did not contribute
to the original grant proposal that suggests imaging bundles, 80 although
his vita claims he is ‘‘widely acknowledged as ‘the Father of Fiber Optics.’ ’’ 81
Years did not abate the feud. Months before his death in October 1994, a
feisty Hopkins told me Kapany ‘‘contributed nothing to the brains of the project;
he was a pair of hands.’’ 82 For his part, Kapany says the professor was
too much a theorist to appreciate his practical skills. 83