What if early fiber-optic communication?

What if Bell combined his invention of the photophone with fiber optics?


Bell's photophone
On June 3, 1880, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless telephone message on his newly invented "photophone." Bell believed the photophone was his most important invention. The device allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light. Of the eighteen patents granted in Bell's name alone, and the twelve he shared with his collaborators, four were for the photophone.
Bell's photophone worked by projecting voice through an instrument toward a mirror. Vibrations in the voice caused similar vibrations in the mirror. Bell directed sunlight into the mirror, which captured and projected the mirror's vibrations. The vibrations were transformed back into sound at the receiving end of the projection. The photophone functioned similarly to the telephone, except the photophone used light as a means of projecting the information, while the telephone relied on electricity.
Although the photophone was an extremely important invention, it was many years before the significance of Bell's work was fully recognized. Bell's original photophone failed to protect transmissions from outside interferences, such as clouds, that easily disrupted transport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photophone)

Fiber optics

Fiber optics, though used extensively in the modern world, is a fairly simple and old technology. Guiding of light by refraction, the principle that makes fiber optics possible, was first demonstrated by Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet in Paris in the early 1840s. John Tyndall included a demonstration of it in his public lectures in London 12 years later. Tyndall also wrote about the property of total internal reflection in an introductory book about the nature of light in 1870.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber)
 
What if Bell combined his invention of the photophone with fiber optics?


Bell's photophone
On June 3, 1880, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless telephone message on his newly invented "photophone." Bell believed the photophone was his most important invention. The device allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light. Of the eighteen patents granted in Bell's name alone, and the twelve he shared with his collaborators, four were for the photophone.
Bell's photophone worked by projecting voice through an instrument toward a mirror. Vibrations in the voice caused similar vibrations in the mirror. Bell directed sunlight into the mirror, which captured and projected the mirror's vibrations. The vibrations were transformed back into sound at the receiving end of the projection. The photophone functioned similarly to the telephone, except the photophone used light as a means of projecting the information, while the telephone relied on electricity.
Although the photophone was an extremely important invention, it was many years before the significance of Bell's work was fully recognized. Bell's original photophone failed to protect transmissions from outside interferences, such as clouds, that easily disrupted transport.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photophone)

Fiber optics

Fiber optics, though used extensively in the modern world, is a fairly simple and old technology. Guiding of light by refraction, the principle that makes fiber optics possible, was first demonstrated by Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet in Paris in the early 1840s. John Tyndall included a demonstration of it in his public lectures in London 12 years later. Tyndall also wrote about the property of total internal reflection in an introductory book about the nature of light in 1870.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber)
Essentially nothing.

You could probably use fiber optics to wire an intercom in a house, say. But look at a sheet of glass edge-on. Most glass is very transparent for ~.5cm / 1.4" thicknesses you're likely to see with a window. But meters/yards of glass start getting pretty murky.

One of the huge revolutions that allowed modern fiber optics was incredibly transparent glass, where you could shine a beam through tens of km (miles) of glass and not lose signal.

The other revolution was in semiconductor lasers.

So. No, fiber optics aren't likely to be a whole lot earlier than OTL, even if someone experiments with them earlier. The tech just isn't there for a useful product.
 
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