How Fiber-Optic Cables Work, Even Across the Ocean

A fiber-optic cable is made up of 100 or more thin strands of glass or plastic known as optical fibers. Each one is less than a tenth as thick as a human hair and can carry 10 million telephone calls. The “engineer guy” Bill Hammack from the University of Illinois uses a bucket of propylene glycol to show how a fiber-optic cable works. Then he describes the fiber optic cable placed under the Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to Europe, and shows how it was designed to survive and prosper.