Narinder Singh Kapany: Father of fiber optics

Narinder Singh Kapany was the first to transmit images through fiber optics back in 1954. His invention laid the foundation for high-speed internet technology. He not only founded fiber optics but also used his own invention for the business.

In 1960 and 1973 he founded the Optics Technology Incorporation and Kaptron Incorporation respectively.

Kapany was not only a renowned physicist but an equally successful businessman.

He received ‘The Excellence 2000 Award’ from the USA Pan-Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 1998, a fellow of numerous scientific societies including the British Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Indian-American Physicist Narinder Singh Kapany was born on October 31, 1926 in Moga district of Punjab, India. He died recently on December 4 in California, aged 94.

Kapany completed his graduation from Agra University. He then moved for higher studies to Imperial College in London, completing his PhD from the University of London in 1955. Later, Kapny migrated to the US.

Kapany was also a teacher of physics at Stanford University, the University of California in different capacities. He published over 100 scientific papers and four books on optoelectronics and entrepreneurship.

Apart from fiber optics, he worked in fields of lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring.

The Government of India honoured Narinder Singh Kapany (Posthumously) with the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest award of the country.

On receiving the award, his daughter Kiran said, “On behalf of my children, Ari and Misha, and my brother Raj Kapany and his children, Tara and Nikki and myself, I would like to thank the Government of India for bestowing the Padma Vibhushan award on our dear father.”

Adding, “We are truly humbled and grateful by all the warm wishes and condolences we are receiving from all over the world honouring and remembering our dear father. We have been overwhelmed by this tremendous outpouring of emotion.”

Why Narinder Singh Kapany Couldn’t Get The Nobel prize?

What remains unanswered is why Narinder Singh Kapany didn’t get the Nobel Prize?

The Nobel prize for fiber optics went to Charles Kao, who played an important role in inventing how to sustain light through glass fibres for long distance. At the same time, it was Kapany who first demonstrated successfully that light can be transmitted through bent glass fibres during his doctoral work at the Imperial College of Science in London in the early fifties, and published the findings in a paper in Nature in 1954.

Questions are still asked with little or no response.

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