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Fiber Optics in the Future

Many scientists think that the technology of fiber optics wilt lead to an enrichment of life like that following the invention of the steam engine, light bulb, and computer.

Only a small number of homes, businesses, school, hospitals, and libraries in the world are connected by optical fibers now. But as fiber optic technology develops there will be an enormous expansion of use. In the future, fiber optics wilt make affordable a wide range of services that may be too expensive for most people or businesses now.

An example of this is teleconferencing. Rather than travel far from their companies and homes, business people will more commonly meet by teleconference. They will send live television pictures of themselves to each other and talk as though they were in the same room. AT&T, Western Union, and some hotels already have teleconferencing rooms for rent in many major cities. However, in 1984, the cost was over $2,000 an hour. But soon it may cost as little as $30 an hour. Further in the future, fiber optics may be used with a method called holography for teleconferences. Holography uses lasers to project three-dimensional images of people or things into thin air—no viewing screen is needed. Laser images transmitted by glass fibers will be so lifelike they will be hard to tell from the real person or object.

Some researchers dream of building an optical com¬puter. The "brains" of today's computers are microchips. These tiny electronic devices are only as thick as a thumbnail and one-quarter inch on a side. Within, they are a maze of miniature metal circuits and thousands of special switches known as transistors. Pulses of electricity passing through the microchip's circuits and switches process all of the computer's information.

An optical computer will operate using pulses of light passing through optical switches. The transistors in a microchip are fast— they can switch ON or OFF millions of times each second. But scientists have built experi¬mental optical switches that are ten thousand times faster. They can switch ON or OFF an incredible one trillion times each second!

Supercomputers of the future operating at faster speeds would make possible automatic translation of foreign language telephone calls (such as English to Japanese). Optical computers also would be the best way to transmit or process highly detailed visual information such as photographs or maps.

In an optical computer, switches will be able to process many bits of information at the same time—something electronic computers usually do not do. Because of this and their faster speed, optical computers would be far more powerful than the computers we have now.

With fiber optics, individual homes and businesses will have new, improved services available. The future will bring routine use of videophones that allow callers to see and hear each other. Telephone consoles may also be computer terminals. And there will be two-way television reception.

Fiber optic sensors will send information to automatic controls for lights, heat, air conditioners, appliances, or industrial machinery. Police and fire fighters will give better security to homes and businesses that have sensors connected directly by optical fibers to monitors at head¬quarters.

Someday you may work in an "intelligent" office building. The building itself may look much like other offices. But inside will be a world of difference.

The first of these office buildings is City Place in Hartford, Connecticut. Others that already have been built include Tower Forty-Nine in New York, LTV Center and Lincoln Plaza in Dallas, Texas, and Citicorp Center in San Francisco. By 1990, over 300 million square feet of "high I.Q." office space is expected to be in use.

An "intelligent" office building has fiber optic detectors that "see" if people are in a room before turning lights on or off. The detectors are connected to a main computer that regulates heat, ventilation, air conditioning, and lighting in each office of the building. Such automatic controls in large buildings can save as much as one-half on energy usage.

Just as important is that businesses in an "intelligent" office building share the benefits and costs of the most modern computer information networks, electronic mail, word processing, and telephone service. These services have been designed into the building's fiber optic system.

Security in "intelligent" office buildings also is im¬proved. If, for example, a sensor detects a fire, its signals automatically ring alarms, call the fire department, ac¬tivate sprinklers, exhaust smoke to the outside, and broadcast emergency instructions.

Fiber optics is lighting the way to an astonishing information age. Home computers will be "wired" to the world. Information from libraries and other sources will be available to us instantly. Banking and shopping will be done from home as well- Electronic newspapers, magazines, and mail will become commonplace. Tele¬phones will be fitted with sockets to plug in computers, printers, television screens, and other information trans¬mitting or receiving devices.

Away from Earth, new uses for fiber optics also will be found. In the 1990s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will build a permanent space station. It will be in orbit about three hundred miles up. The space station will use on-board fiber optic systems for communications, computer processing, monitoring, and controls. The station also will establish factories in the near-zero gravity of space. Some of these factories will manufacture glass more flawless and free of impur¬ities than can be made on Earth. This ultrapure glass will be brought back to Earth by the Space Shuttle to be made into even better optical fibers and other products.

Sometime in the next century, people will live in space colonies. They will process information and communicate using optical fibers and light. And they probably will find uses for fiber optics that hasn’t yet been imagined.

Alexander Graham Bell's brightest idea will have become a reality reaching far beyond his most fantastic dreams.