Narinder Singh Kapany
Birth- October 31, 1926
Death- December 4, 2020
Inventor and Father of Fibre Optics
Considered the ‘Father of Fibre Optics’, this Punjab-born scientist’s glorifying discovery of communication through optical fibres paved the way for the ‘internet’ as well as medical marvels like laser surgeries or endoscopic imaging.
Our country, India, is not rich today, but it is not poor either. The country awaits the day when every Indian will be prosperous, educated, empowered, and well-behaved. Our portal www.shashvatsatya.com also remembering and paying tribute to those personalities who have given India a new lease of life with their knowledge, science and inventions but his or her names are in darkness and only countable persons knows about them.
Unfortunately, Kapany’s contribution was grossly overlooked for Nobel Prize when Charles Kuen Kao was awarded the honour for furthering on Kapany’s discovery.
Born in 1927 to a Sikh family in Moga, Punjab, Kapany studied at the University of Agra and later joined Imperial College, London to conduct extensive research in technology.
It was during his PhD at this institution that Kapany succeeded in transmitting images over a bundle of optical fibres and coined the term ‘fibre optics’ in 1955, opening up an entirely new portal of Optical Physics.
He joined the University of Rochester as a faculty member and later went on to become a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, USA. At present, the 92-year-old is credited for over 100 patents in his name and also runs a philanthropic organisation called the Sikh Foundation. (Courtesy Internate website- in favour of country and for motivation to citizens)(UPDATED ON 3RD FEB 2026)
