If there is one technical fact that we want people to go home with from their visit to the museum it is that 98% of all international communication, email, web, data transfer, financial trading and more is by optical fibre.
So, we have a new exhibition to explain it all!
We explain how we can communicate with light and not, as the early telegraphers did, by electricity. We will tell you that as well as the invention of the optical fibre, the invention of the laser was equally important. We will show you how to send Morse code messages using light, how to boost, or amplify light signals down an optical fibre, how to send vast amounts of data down a single optical fibre and then using an “optical chip” (just like silicon chip) we will show how to process the data.
Then there is more … Cornwall is still the hub of communication for this country and an important world wide hub. You can see maps that show the 15 optical cables that come into Cornwall. Did you know that when you drive to the museum you will be travelling close to an optical fibre that take data from Cornwall through the Mediterranean to Japan, China and South Korea!
You will also see today’s inventors – the people who made fibre optic possible and who invented the laser, amplifiers, optical chips and most important of all the story of Charles Kao, the inventor of the optical communication fibre and Nobel prize winner.
Come and see us!