US Sikh scientist and Father of Fibre optics Dr Narinder Singh Kapany, 94, passed away on Friday. A great scientist and philanthropist, Dr Narinder Singh Kapany is among the 10 most renowned Sikhs in the world and earned the title of “Father of Fibre-Optics”. He was named one of the seven “Unsung Heroes” by Fortune magazine and called Businessmen of the Century in its issue of November 22, 1999.
Dr Rajwant Singh, Chief of Eco Sikh, 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 recognised in the academic and art world will always be admired.”
Kapany was born to a Sikh family in Moga, Punjab, and graduated from Agra University. He served briefly as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service officer, before going to Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in 1952 for advanced studies in optics. He received his doctorate from the University of London 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. 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.
Dr Kapany’s research on fibre optics communications, lasers, bio-medical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring led him to gather more than 100 patents. He became a member of the US National Inventors’ Council. As a philanthropist, Dr Kapany endowed a Chair of Opto-Electronics at the University of California in 1999. He is also a trustee of the Menlo School in Menlo Park, California. In 1998, he funded a Chair of Sikh Studies at the University of California in memory of his mother, Kundan Kaur Kapany.
