He is holding a Hong Kong identity card, and also lives in Hong Kong for many years, so I say he belongs to Hong Kong.
Many years ago, it was very interesting to hear the name of ... “Gao, Father of Fiber Optics”, and a lot of questions were thrusting up immediately, “What is fiber optics? What is the use of fiber optics?” “Father of Fiber optics” should be the person who invented fiber optics, so the man deserves the reputation of “Father”. Charles K. Gao is definitely the glory of Chinese people, the descendents of Dragon. When I understood a bit more about what optical fibers can do later, I felt his distinguished achievement. Then I wondered why he had not been a "Nobel Prize" winner with regard to his great invention of fiber optics, his lifetime contribution doing research and nurturing talents of his students, especially his being so humble.
I could still remember watching Mr. Gao on television many years ago when he seemed to be living in Hong Kong then, and two interesting parts in the documentary filming impressed me very much. One was his secretary saying in front of the camera, “He (Gao) is very scared to use the photocopying machine. To control enlarging and reducing photo sizes is so troublesome that he might probably be freaked out.” And it really happened later that he needed a photocopy of some information and asked the lady secretary to do the job for him, so he said in front of everybody that it is not easy for him to handle the photocopying machine, ha ha ...a great inventor was afraid of such small stuff!
Another interesting part in the documentary filming was that Charles was once in an overseas museum, standing beside a statue of himself, while some museum visitors watched the contrast effect of reality going side by side with illusion, then all felt so funny and laughed; he was willing to interact with them for fun, so this reflected his sense of humor.
Once I saw on television that he and his wife were living in the United States, with his sickness (senile dementia), he had unloaded his life-long heavy bag from his shoulders, a simple mind with a simple look of innocence, and mostly important, he remained quite healthy. It appeared that his life was very happy and I hoped God would let him go on living like that happily!
Charles began to study fiber optics a few decades ago and single-handedly set off the revolution in communications. In addition to the advantage of low cost of sending messages by glass fibers, he did not apply for fiber optics patents for monetary reward. His being unselfish has made it possible to lower the cost of fiber-optic transmissions, leading to their worldwide acceptance and appliance.
Today, the Internet is shining globally, long-distance telephone charges are very cheap, transmissions of TV and video messages are very common ─ all these are the blessings from fiber-optics.
Gao, with his outstanding talents and decades of perseverance, made fiber optics available for the whole world and let every one share its honor. He made us feel closer neighborhood around the world, a more exciting world!
Mr. Charles K. Gao, "Father of Fiber Optics", in my mind, has already won the "Nobel Prize"!
From Simon.del.mondo
Translated by Tameer
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment