Charles Kao in 1942, with his younger brother and cousins in Shanghai, China. Second from left: young Charles Kao.
Gallery of Charles Kao
1942
Young Charles Kao (second from left) with his family.
College/University
Gallery of Charles Kao
Career
Gallery of Charles Kao
1965
Harlow, Unitec Kingdom
In 1965, the then young scientist Charles Kao doing an early experiment on optical fibers at the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow, United Kingdom.
In 1965, the then young scientist Charles Kao doing an early experiment on optical fibers at the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow, United Kingdom.
(Sir Charles Kao is generally regarded as the father of fi...)
Sir Charles Kao is generally regarded as the father of fiber optics, based in part on his discovery that signal loss in fiber cables was a direct result of impurities in the glass rather than a flaw in the technology - a breakthrough that affects nearly every aspect of our present-day communication infrastructure. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009 "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication," this memoir chronicles the personal and scientific odyssey of one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists.
Charles K. Kao was a noted Chinese-born British-American electrical engineer and physicist, who developed the use of fiber-optics in telecommunications. He created various techniques to merge glass fibers with lasers so that digital data could be transmitted without much loss, thus laying the groundwork for the evolution of the Internet. Kao was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of how light can be transmitted through fiber-optic cables.
Background
Charles K. Kao was born on November 4, 1933, in Shanghai, Republic of China, to Kao Chun-Hsiang and King Tsing Fong. His father, an alumnus of Michigan Law School, was a successful Shanghai attorney. Later, he became a legal adviser and an instructor in Chinese law in Hong Kong.
Kao had a younger brother called Timothy. He also had two elder siblings, a sister and a brother, who died of measles before he was born. Kao held dual citizenship in Great Britain and the United States.
Education
Because of the death of their elder siblings, the Kao brothers led a protected life, beginning their education at home under home tutors. Around 1943, Charles K. Kao began his formal education at the elite Shanghai World School. Although China was under Japanese occupation since 1937, they were quite untouched by the war, having their home inside the Shanghai French Concession. The Second World War too had little impact on their life. But in 1948, with the advent of the Red Army, the family decided to leave Shanghai.
After a short stay at Taipei, the family settled down in Hong Kong in 1948. In Hong Kong Kao completed his secondary education at St. Joseph’s College, then moved to England in 1952 to do his undergraduate studies in electrical engineering at Woolwich Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree.
Kao received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of London in 1965.
In 1957, shortly after graduating from College, Charles K. Kao went to work for Standard Telephones and Cables, a British subsidiary of the American telecommunications company ITT. For one year, he was made to rotate through different sections, eventually settling down in the microwave division in 1958.
In 1960, he applied for a lectureship at Loughborough Polytechnic; but decided to stay back when STC offered him a job at their research unit, the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL), at Harlow. Their lawyers took care of the legal matters pertaining to the Polytechnic, also having his house deposit refunded.
In 1963, Kao joined STL’s optical communications research team. Initially working with Antoni E. Karbowiak, his task was to investigate fiber attenuation, in course of which he started collecting samples, investigating the properties of bulk glasses. In late 1963, he was appointed head of the electro-optics research group, succeeding Karbowiak in the post. By then, he had realized that light loss in fibers was caused by impurities in it. He now decided to abandon Karbowiak’s plan and started working in a new direction.
In 1964, as George Alfred Hockham joined Kao’s team, they started investigating not only optical physics but also the material properties. Meanwhile, in December 1964, Charles K. Kao took over STL’s optical communication program.
In 1966 he and British engineer George Hockham proposed that fibers made of ultra-pure glass could transmit light for distances of kilometers without a total loss of signal. In 1970 the first practical fiber-optic cable was successfully produced, and by the end of the 20th century, much of the world’s telecommunications was traveling through a fibre-optic cable.
The same year, Charles K. Kao took two years' leave of absence from STL and joined the faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, helping it to set up its electronics department. The leave was later extended till 1974. In 1974 he rejoined ITT as chief scientist of its electro-optical products division in Roanoke, Virginia. He later became ITT’s director of engineering in that division, and from 1983 to 1987 he was an executive scientist and director of research at the ITT Advanced Tech Center in Shelton, Connecticut.
From 1987 to 1996 he was vice-chancellor and president at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kao then became chairman and chief executive officer (1996-2001) of Transtech, a Hong Kong fiber-optic company, and in 2000 he became chairman and chief executive officer of ITX Services, a technology transfer company. He held the position until 2007.
(Sir Charles Kao is generally regarded as the father of fi...)
2010
Religion
According to Kao's autobiography, he was a Catholic.
Views
Kao was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative brain disorder, in 2004. He and his wife, Gwen Kao, founded the Charles K. Kao Foundation for Alzheimer’s Disease Limited in 2010 to promote awareness about and care for those with the disease in Hong Kong.
Quotations:
"When information is infinite, individual pieces of information are worth nothing."
"Ideas do not always come in a flash but by diligent trial-and-error experiments that take time and thought."
Membership
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
,
United States
1979
Institution of Engineering and Technology
,
United Kingdom
Royal Academy of Engineering
,
United Kingdom
1989
Optical Society of America
,
United States
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
,
Austria
National Academy of Engineering
,
United States
1990
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"He really enabled modern life. All the communications we use - from mobile phones to the internet - are down to Charlie Kao's fantastic observations. Without him, the world would be a very different place." - Will Stewart
Connections
In 1959, Charles K. Kao married Wong May-wan (Gwen), a fellow engineer at Standard Telephones & Cables. They had two children, a son called Simon, born in 1961, and a daughter called Amanda, born in 1963.