How does fiber-optic light carry the internet?
Light's Glass Highway
How does fiber-optic light carry the internet?
Right now, while you're reading this, invisible threads of glass underneath oceans and cities are firing pulses of light back and forth at the speed of — well, light. Those pulses are your texts, your videos, your search results. The internet isn't floating in "the cloud." It's trapped inside hair-thin glass fibers, bouncing along at 670 million miles per hour.
Here's the trick: light travels fast, but it also travels straight. Shine a flashlight across a room and the light goes in a line until it hits the wall. You can't bend light around a corner. Or can you? If you trap light inside glass and bounce it just right, it'll follow the glass wherever it goes — around corners, under oceans, straight into your house.
