US Sikh scientist and father of the Fibre Optics Dr Kapany is no more
Washington, December 04, 2020: US Sikh scientist and father of the Fibre optics Dr Narinder Singh Kapany is no more!
He was a great scientist, philanthropist and an ardent promoter of the Sikh art and literature.
Disclosing this to Babushahi.com Dr Rajwant Singh, Chief of Eco Sikh condoled the demise.He said,“Very sad to inform that the Sikh community has lost a stalwart in America. I had great relationship with him since early 80s. I still remember many meetings we had at the Cosmos club in Washington, a prestigious club for scientists and he was an honorary member there. His contribution towards Sikh studies and his push to get Sikhs recognized in the academic and art world will always be admired. May Waheguru bless his soul and give strength to his family and all the colleagues at the Sikh Foundation.”
Read more about Dr Kampani :
Narinder Singh Kapany (Punjabi: ਨਰਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ) (born 31 October 1926) is an Indian-born American physicist known for his work in fibre optics. He was named as one of the seven "Unsung Heroes" by Fortune in their 'Businessmen of the Century' issue (1999-11-22). He is also known as "Father of Fiber Optics". The term fibre optics was coined by Singh Kapany in 1956.[9] He is a former IOFS officer.
Kapany was born to a Sikh family in Moga, Punjab, and studied at Agra University.[1] He served briefly as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service officer, before going to Imperial College London in 1952 to work on a Ph.D. degree in optics, which he obtained in 1955.
At Imperial College, Kapany worked with Harold Hopkins on transmission through fibers, achieving good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibers for the first time in 1953.Optical fibers had been tried for image transmission before, but Hopkins and Kapany's technique allowed much better image quality than could pry be achieved. This, combined with the almost-simultaneous development of optical cladding by Dutch scientist Bram van Heel, started the new field of fibre optics. Kapany coined the term 'fibre optics' in an article in Scientific American in 1960, wrote the first book about the new field, and was the new field's most prominent researcher, writer, and spokesperson.
Kapany's research and work have encompassed fibre-optics communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring. He has over one hundred patents, and was a member of the National Inventors Council. He is an International Fellow of numerous scientific societies including the British Royal Academy of Engineering,[2] the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science