Optics & Photonics News

I enjoyed your article that described
how spider webs were used to make the
net of fibers used in sighting devices
(November 2010). Back in 1986, I sent a
letter to Katherine George, the editor of
Optics News (OPN’s predecessor). It was
published in Volume 12, Number 11:
In the papers of John McLeod,
OSA’s Richardson medalist for 1976,
a note was found, titled “Spider
Web Crosshairs.” For decades, both
German and U.S. optical companies
used spider webs in bombsights
and rangefinders. Here is how one
American scientist chose his spider
and persuaded it to cooperate:
“Coax the spider onto a corner of
the slide. Give the slide a jerk so
that the spider will drop off and
hang on its web. Quickly wind in a
few turns of web across the opening
of the card as the spider hangs on
the web. This stretches the web by
just one spider’s weight for which
the web has been designed.”
The document is a fine example of
clarity, compactness and perspec-
tive in scientific writing. But I value
it especially because, when I was
a child, McLeod gave me my first
lens—a molded plastic Fresnel of
his own design.

Helen Gourley San Francisco, Calif., U.S.A.

Helen@ssglight.com

O’Brien and Kapany
I read with interest your article titled
“Presidents of the Early 1950s” (Decem-
ber 2010). I was a night school student
at the Institute of Optics from the fall
of 1952 to the spring of 1958. Brian
O’Brien went off to AO shortly after
I arrived, and I never had a class with
him. However, he came back once and
gave us a lecture, the topic of which
escapes me. On the matter of optical
fibers, however, Narinder Kapany joined
the Institute as a professor in 1955, and
at some point before I graduated in
1958, he gave us a lecture on low index
cladding of optical fibers. Kapany soon
left the Institute and went on to become
known as the “father of fiber optics,”
apparently with no credit to O’Brien.

THE AUTHOR RESPONDS: Thanks very much for your note. I am not close enough to the optical fiber community to know whether Kapany learned from O’Brien or vice versa.

In the 1950s and 1960s, one could always spot Kapany in any crowd of optics types; he was reasonably tall, and he added to his natural height by wearing a brightly colored Sikh turban, often purple- or rose-colored. I also remember a time—I think in the mid-1970s— when I happened to be in India visiting several optics groups. I was staying at the Oberoi, a very fancy hotel, and late one afternoon I had wandered onto a floor of the hotel that had displays of fancy clothing. There were also a couple dozen Sikhs milling around. My eyes met one of them, and I realized it was Kapany! I asked him what he was doing in India. It turned out that the Indian government had just selected him for an award as an Indian entrepeneur who had succeeded in America; and he was there for the presentation of a medal by Indira Gandhi the next day!

Perhaps one of the optical fiber pioneers will write from Corning with more information about who learned what from whom. In any case, thanks for your letter!

John Howard

Contributing Editor, The History of OSA johnnelsonhoward@gmail.com

Please direct all correspondence to the Editor, Optics & Photonics News, The Optical Society, 2010 Massachusetts Ave., N. W., Washington, D.C. 20036. E-mail: opn@osa.org.