Every email, video call, and fiber-optic broadband connection relies on technology pioneered by Narinder Singh Kapany. In 1953–54, working at Imperial College London, he demonstrated the practical transmission of light through flexible glass fibers, publishing his results in Nature in 1954. He later coined the term “fiber optics” in a 1960 Scientific American article. His breakthrough showed that light could carry information over distance with minimal loss, laying the foundation for modern telecommunications networks, internet infrastructure, and medical imaging technologies. By making fiber-optic communication possible, Kapany helped create the physical infrastructure of the Information Age.
