The laser has proven to be an excellent device for carring and passing information. The amount of information light can carry depends on its frequency: the higher the frequency, the more information can be carried. Visible light has frequencies from 400 trillion to 800 trillion cycles per second. This is one million times more cycles than a television wave.

     A beam of light stores information and then sends this information to the target where the information is decoded by a computer. Problems exist with this procedure over long distance in the earth's atmosphere. As the beam of light travels through the atmospehere, molecules of air absorb some of the photons. Therefore, the farther the light travels, the dimmer it becomes.

     Researching this problem lead scientists to find the solution in something they named fiber optics. In 1966, scientists Kao and Hockhan suggested a thin glass fiber could be used that to transport the laser light. In 1970, scientist Maurer constructed such a fiber. It was 1/4" in diameter, the inside stuffed with a cable that was lined with an extremely reflective glass called cladding. The cladding allowed the cable to perform turns without the signal breaking by reflecting the light along the curves and bends. In case the signal became weak when traveling the long distances, the fiber passed through amplifying stations that boosted the signal.

     The laser beam is flashed into the optic fiber. It passes through amplifing stations as it travels until it reaches its destination and is decoded. The distance the beam can travel without being amplified is drastically increasing from 1/3 of a mile in 1970 to 26 miles today.

     The laser passing in the fiber optic cable has advanced the telephone idustry. In the past a cable was very thick so that it could contain many wires to carry many different conversations. The noise the singnals produced commenly interfered with each other. Now by using the fiber optic cable and lasers, thousands of conversations can be carried in noiseless, thin cables because light is much thiner, soundless, and lighter than the previous wires used. Fiber optics are being used to transfer signals and information above ground as well as underwater, and to transmit televison signals or even to wire cars.