Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Do a Nobel Experiment

Nobel Prize for CCD Technology


The fastest CCD video camera, can take 100,000 pictures per second. The CCD received a Nobel Prize back in 1921. The other half of the physics prize goes to Charles Kao, who laid the theoretical groundwork for high-speed, fiber-optic communication. In the 1960’s scientists were just starting to experiment with transmitting light through glass fibers, but Kao could transmit pulses of light 5 times farther than regular glass. 40 years later, thanks to Kao, it takes no more than a quarter second for data to make the trip halfway around the world. Now it takes 1 second for 700 DVDs to be transmitted to Chicago from Paris France. Optical fiber, which Charles used, is found deep into the world’s oceans. It could be stretched over 1 billion kilometers. Or in other words it can circle the earth 25,000 times. The U.S. Company corning, a glass company is the largest producer of optical fiber in the world. With out Charles Kao’s theory, computers would have never been fast and this all would have never happened. So I say thanks to Charles Kao for giving us the opportunity to make technology what it is today because if it went for you  the life as we know it would be totally different.

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