How does information travel through fiber optic cables?
The internet runs on tiny tubes of trapped light.
The answer
Fiber optic cables transmit data as pulses of light through thin strands of ultra-pure glass or plastic. The light bounces along the fiber's interior through total internal reflection - hitting the boundary at a shallow angle, it reflects completely rather than escaping. A single fiber thinner than a human hair can carry terabits of data per second over hundreds of kilometers with minimal signal loss. The global network of submarine fiber optic cables spans over 1.3 million kilometers.
Source: Optical Society of America
- fiber optics
- physics
- telecommunications
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