Charles Kao

Charles K. Kao was a visionary Chinese-born, British-American physicist and educator who contributed to the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications. In the 1960s, he created various methods to combine glass fibers with lasers in order to transmit digital data, which laid the groundwork for the evolution of the internet. He was born in Shanghai in 1933 and moved to Hong Kong with his family in 1949. He graduated from St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong and went to London to study electrical engineering. He obtained his PhD from University College London in 1965, where he worked on the theory of optical communication. He joined Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, the research center of Standard Telephones and Cables, in Harlow, England, and it was here in 1966 that he proposed the use of high-purity glass fibers as a medium for long-distance communication. He showed that the main obstacle to achieving low-loss transmission was the impurities in the glass, and suggested ways to overcome this problem. He also demonstrated the feasibility of using single-mode fibers for higher bandwidth and lower dispersion. His work was initially met with skepticism, but later proved to be revolutionary. He is widely regarded as the "father of fiber optics", the "godfather of broadband", and the "father of fiber optic communications". He continued his work in Hong Kong at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he served as the vice-chancellor from 1987 to 1996, and in the United States at ITT Corporation and Yale University. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication. He also received many other honors and awards, such as the Marconi Prize, the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the Japan Prize, the Prince Philip Medal, and the Grand Bauhinia Medal. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010 for his services to fiber optic communications. He was a citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, and a permanent resident of Hong Kong. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his later years and died in 2018 at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife Gwen and his extended family. He was a pioneer, a visionary, and an inspiration to many.