lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) (03/14/89)
In article <11020@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> muir@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (David Muir Sharnoff) writes: >In article <4409@pt.cs.cmu.edu> lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes: >>(The single-mode optic fibers that are in >>the ground right now, have an intrinsic bandwidth of 35,000 gigahertz, >>in the IR window alone. > >Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean that you could store ~100GB >in a 3000 mile fiber loop? Great idea! Of course, 3000 miles of fiber is about enough to squash my desk flat. Perhaps I should get a DARPA grant to develop a high-strength desk. There is also a minor, temporary problem with the emitters and receivers. Our fiber-making technology is currently about three orders of magnitude ahead of our fiber-using technology. Luckily, laser technology is still advancing quickly. (For example, Sagnac-effect devices have improved by six orders of magnitude in the last ten years.) Do I have a little list of breakthroughs? Yes ... -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science --