In memory of Nobel Laureate Sir Charles K. Kao

2009 Nobel Laureate for Physics late Sir Charles K. Kao

(Picture from Wikipedia)

An optoelectronic keyboard is a type of keyboard that uses light sensors to detect key presses. Instead of using traditional mechanical switches, the keys of an optoelectronic keyboard contain light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodetectors. When a key is pressed, the photodetector detects the interruption of light caused by the key, and the corresponding keypress is registered. 

Optoelectronic keyboards are often used in environments where durability and resistance to liquid spills are important, as they have no moving parts and can be sealed to protect it from damage.

The first “optoelectronic keyboard” was developed by Hewlett-Packard in the 1960s.

Fibre optics was discovered in the 19th century, but its full potential as a means of transmitting data was only realised in the 1960s. 

In 1966, Charles K. Kao discovered the potential of glass fibres for transmitting light signals, which later led to the development of practical optical fibre cables.

Sir  Charles Kao was a renowned physicist and engineer. He was born on November 4, 1933, in Shanghai, China, and passed away on September 23, 2018. 

Sir Charles Kao is most famously known for his groundbreaking work on the practicality of using optical fibres for long-distance telecommunications. In the 1960s, he foresaw the potential of optical fibre cables as a viable solution for transmitting large amounts of information over long distances. At the time, copper wires were the standard for communication, but they suffered from limited bandwidth and significant signal loss.

Sir Charles Kao's research and experiments in the late 1960s led him to demonstrate that the attenuation (loss of signal) within an optical fibre could be significantly reduced if the fibre’s impurities were minimized. This discovery paved the way for the development and commercialization of fibre-optic communication systems, which revolutionized global telecommunications.

In recognition of his pioneering work, Sir Charles Kao, along with Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009. This prestigious honor solidified his status as a key figure in the advancement of modern telecommunication technology.

Aside from his contributions to the field of fibre optics, Sir Charles Kao held various academic and industry positions throughout his career. 

He obtained his Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of London and later pursued a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the Imperial College London. 

Our paths crossed here in London as he was simultaneously working at the research centre of Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) in Harlow. This research centre of STC was affiliated with the research centre where I was working, the Rubber and  Plastics Research Association of Great Britain (RAPRA) in Shawbury. 

My work was on durability of polymeric materials, including the alternate material for fibre optics, acrylics.

Sir Charles Kao's work continues to be highly regarded and has profoundly impacted the telecommunications industry, facilitating the fast and efficient transmission of data around the world. His contributions to the development of optical fibre cables have revolutionized long-distance communication and laid the foundation for the digital age we live in today.

The potential of acrylic fibres as a fibre optic medium was discovered by a team of researchers at Bell Laboratories in the United States.

Engineers at Bell Laboratories discovered the potential of acrylic fibres as an optical fibre cable in 1970.

 

The first company to produce acrylic fiber for fibre optic cables was DuPont.

I am releasing this entry about Sir. Charles Kao and fibre optics, as in 1996 I wrote a confidential paper on my thoughts on “optoelectronic keyboards” which was not about the use of optoelectronic switches but on keyboards which would actually consist of mini screens as keys!

This concept arose out of the problems associated with original mobile phone numeric keyboards. 

Although IBM had already developed a touch keyboard for its mobile phone,  Signal, in 1994, it was nowhere near the possible potential.

When I exchanged my ideas and views with Steve Jobs in 1997 when he had returned to Apple from NEXT, it was well received, but it was only taken more seriously when Apple iPhone was released  in 2007, but only taking a very small part of my keyboard concept into consideration.

QWERTY keyboard

AZERTY Keyboard

DVORAK Keyboard

Here are the four pages of the text of my original paper “Optoelectronic Keyboards - Basic Concept, User Friendliness and Technology Shift” written  in 1996. 

It was first shared confidentially with my then son-in-law, Tony Manninen.

After doing a patent search, which showed that my concept was unique, I shared it with Steve Jobs. 

Unfortunately, the email exchange with Steve Jobs was through my now defunct internet account findians@findians.com as my service provider in Canada went bust and I lost my domain name. 

However, if someone is able to search Steve Jobs’s archives, it may be possible to retrieve our correspondence.

Sir Charles Kao developed Alzheimer’s in 2003. But he could still recall people and names and still carried on his research work. 

As I care for Annikki, stricken with Alzheimers, I still have hope that, like Sir Charles Kao, Annikki will continue to contribute to society, as she has done for the last 50 years, just by the sheer joy she conveys daily to all of us around her. 

Sir Charles Kao used most of his Nobel Prize money to set up a foundation to help those suffering from Alzeihmers.

I thought to release this blog today, 4th November 2023 as it is the 90th birthday of the late Sir Charles Kao, who influenced some of my work on acrylic polymer optoelectronics fibres in the late 1960s.

Stages of the Art of Annikki Part 2

In this blog entry I want to show you what Annikki did with house interiors.

Our small semi-detached house in Shawbury, Shrewsbury, Shropshire! 1967

My first lesson came when our first daughter was born in Shawbury, England. We had a small company semi-detached house with two bedrooms and a small study upstsirs with the living room, kitchen and dining room on the ground floor.

There was no central heating but we had a coal fireplace in the living room. We had a paraffin heater in the entrance hall and an electric bar heater in the dining toom. The upstairs was quite cold as the only the heat that permeated upstairs was available for us.. 

When Annikki was admitted to hospital for the birth of our first daughter, Susanna, I discussed with a couple of my colleagues and we all thought Annikki would be more comfortable if we moved the bedroom downstairs as the living room was always warm with a raging coal fire.. 

So three of us moved all the bedroom furniture of bed and cupboards down the narrow winding staircase down the living room and took all the living room furniture upstairs including the large television. A job well done by three people!

After 7 days I brought Annikki home from hospital.  I showed her our handiwork but she said absolutely nothing.

The next day I returned in the mornimg to my work and came home  at 5 in the evening.

I got a shock of  my life as this little lady had, by herself, reversed all the work we has done! 

I did not question her as this was her home, but it was my first experience of Finnish “sisu”.

I never again interfered in “her home” as the lesson was quite evident,

We moved to India in 1969 and we lived in a small flat in the city centre. Annikki was not happy.  

Three of our children in thded garden of our home in Madras.

I found a small independent house with a garden in the suburb of Madras. It was in the Defence Officer’s Colony at St. Thomas Mount.  This  house appeared on the market for rent. 

Annikki liked it and we took it on rent. It had just been constructed and the house had two bedrooms, a large study and a large living cum dining room room. Just ideal for the two of us and our two small children with a third one on the way. Annikki furnished it minimally and we lived there for a couple of years,

Then a good family friend told me that he had a property of about half and acre with a large two storey villa type house with three bedrooms, a large living room, a large dining room, an entrance toom, a pantry and an enormous kitchen, with  a verandah upstairs, a large. study room for the children, and a verandah at the entrance of the house. It also had a small covered car shed. The house also had a small outhouse for any live in home help.

 

Standing in the garden of our Velacheri villa in Madras. 

I took it immediately and Annikki got to work to furnish it.

She wanted a good living room set. Those on the market did not appeal to her. She designed her own to have it made. Rosewood and teak wood were expensive, 

I took her to a wood depot and she knew exactly what she wanted. 

White ceddar logs were lying there were really cheap as nobody could find use for it. Annikki got the logs sawn to exactly the sizes she wanted. Annikki then called a local carpenter and told him how she wanted the furniture to be made. No nails were used but using the wedge shaped locking design she designed all her furniture. 

The carpenter, an old man, was extremely good and made the three seater and a single seater sofa set. 

As MM Rubber was part of our family group, she got the foam cushions made to suit the correct size. They were just superb and became a talking point among our friends. 

All the other furniture was also designed by Annikki and they suited our needs.

They lasted the next 10 years we lived in India. When we left India we got the price almost three times it had cost us to make them.

Her choice of cushion covers, curtains and other furnishings  made use of the wonderful Indian textiles and the enormous range of colours and designs that were available.

The houses we occupied alway had her paintings to make them unique. Her creations as this one of handed painted fused light bulbs and aluminium foil was before the concept of recycling had even been thought of as an important international necessity!

She mastered the space concept be creating use for every square millimetre. Using even the exterior of a wall cupboard as valuable space.

She even recycled detergent boxes making them into file holders.

We also had a large collection of Indian antiques, but that is another storey which we will blog about later.

When we moved to Finland we had to leave most of the stuff behind but she brought whatever she thought were important for our new life in Finlsnd.

Our first home Finland was a small living cum dining room, an attic room  and another even smaller attic room with a  tiny kitchen. We were six, two adults and four children of ages 17, 26, 13 and 11. 

The photos above show how she used her skill as well as creating her own designs to make the home a place of sheer beauty.

Annikki was absolutely super in the way she organised that small 25 sq m space. There was adequate room for everyone.

Two children left for England within a year and the four of us were very comfortable for the next 9 years when our third daughter moved out. 

Then our son went to boarding school in Turku and we were just two and it was luxury.

When Annikki’s younger brother moved in, I decided we would move out. We found a lovely penthouse on Torikatu. Annikki did a masterful job setting up that home.

However, her father passed away and we had to move back to Annikki’s mother's home to look after her mother who had developed dementia. The house was remodelled by Annikki to suit  the situation. 

Annikki implemented many aspects making it suitable and an outstanding house to live in and look after her disabled mother. 

At the same time she did the house interior so beautifully that living there was like being in heaven. And I never saw her work as she was always doing something and I only saw it when she completed each task.

Her designs are worth talking anout.

She created an ordinary goldfish bowl into an art creation.

She took an ordinary fish tank and it became a piece of art.

The colours were self generated by sunlight coming through tghe window.

Her table top aquarium was a masterpiece as it became our cat’s tv. She would sit on it or lie on it to see the tasty gold fish swimming under the plastic cover.

She converted an outdoor flower stand into an unusual and excellent aquarium.

When her mother passed away in 2008, our daughter, Joanna, had moved  to England to study medicine. We moved into her house. Annikki worked wonders in that house but she was not happy in this borrowed home.

By good fortune we found a house on Sarkkatie. It was just right for her. 

The photos above show a small portion of her creativity. For instance, the antlers are not antlers but a branch from a tree fashioned as antlers!

We lived there for 10 years and it became the personal museum of Annikki. It showcased her interior design competence. Everything she did was artistic!

Unfortunately, my heart failure and amputation of my foot meant we had to move to an apartment as neither of us were able to maintain a large house and garden.

I am no interior designer and just tried to make everything practical for me as an invalid in a wheelchair to manage a apartment also and Annikki who had developed dementia.

I sadly miss Annikki’s special skills as an interior designer which I had thoroughly enjoyed throughout our married life! 

It is only now I discovered the enormous talent Annikki possessed as everything in our homes was always just perfect. 

She was prepared for every eventuality that everything was taken by me as granted. She was never stressed. 

Only now I realise how much she had worked to get the homes right for all of us.

I am not even close to being an interior design. 

What I have shown you here just a few examples of Annikki's capabilities. 

In my next blog of this series I will show you that beside interior design she was so competent as a garden designer. She created four of our gardens so beautifully that every single day I miss that skill of Annikki.

Jolly, Molly and ….

 If you have Jolly and Molly as husband and wife, the quiz is what is the daughter’s name?”

The answer will be revealed at the end of this blog entry!

Dr. M. V. Kurien was known as Jollychayan to us. His wife was called by us as Mollykochamma. 

The old Syrian Christian marriage rules stated that you should not marry anyone who was closer than your ninth cousin. When my mother’s brother, Mr. K. M. Philip (Peelukuttychayan and also known as Pappa) wanted to marry his fourth cousin in the 1930s, special dispensation was required from the head of our church. His wife Chinnammakochamma, was the elder sister of Mollykochamma. 

Jollychayan with his wife’s brother-in-law Pappa at the wedding of my niece.

They had one more sister, Thangammakochamma, who married my father’s younger brother, John Matthan (Johnnyappapen), an engineer who worked as General Manager in Indian Railways and later was CEO of BHEL in Ramachandrapuram  in Hyderabad and retired as the CEO of the Integral coach Factory at Perambur, Madras..

All this still maintained the fourth cousin rule as no one was related to anyone who was closer than the church dictum. 

When my sister married Babu, the rule still held as although Babu was the cousin of Jollychayan, and there was close interaction between the families, the church dictum still held.  

Complicated way of saying that Dr. M. V. Kurien was close to us and one of our extended family!

Verghese Kurien, Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel, and Harichand Megha Dalaya

Dr. Kurien was the person who, with a Gujarat politician, Tribhuvandas Patel and engineer Harichand Dalaya changed the face of milk production and distribution, first in Gujarat snd then around India with the Whose Revolution, also known as Operation Flood.

The way he did this is by reaching the farmers in Gujarat by testing the milk they brought to Anand and paying them in cash based on the quality of the milk. This put hard cash in the hands of the farmers. He then made sure the farmers got the best feed for their cattle ensuring the quality of the milk increased. He then took steps to raise the quality of the herd.

This led to the Gujarat Milk Cooperative becoming the best run in the country with the farmers getting their benefits directly with no middlemen.

His next stop was Bombay where we still got milk delivered at the doorstep. He set up the same model in an effort to move the cattle out of the city area and ensure the quality of the milk increased by setting up the diary in Worli. 

Those who were getting good quality milk and milk products from the Parsi Dairy situated in Marine Lines in Bombay, suddenly found milk booths at every other corner in Bombay where the sealed blue aluminium top striped bottles was available twice a day at a reasonable price with no adulteration.

I returned to India in September 1969 from my studies in England. My cousin’s wedding was in progress and as Mollykochamma was the aunt of my cousin getting married, 

I got to interact with Jollychayan almost immediately after landing in Bombay. 

I was fresh from seeing the milk distribution in Finlsnd using plastic bags. Bring a plastics technologist full of myself, I told Jollychayan of my experience and how it would be economically viable to distribute milk in these plastics satchels. He was at about the very start of his Operstion Flood program which started in 1970.

He was enthralled with the idea and asked me to give him a report on this as he was discussing alternate means of distributing milk as the recycling of glass bottles was very costjy and energy intensive.

Finland, however, discarded the plastics bags and moved to coated paper cartons which suited their paper industry base even though they were paying a royalty to an American company on every single carton produced. The Swedish company Tetrapak was also growing in this field.

Jollychayan was being bombarded with offers to set up these paper carton lines.

He however had other alternatives up his sleeve. He first choice went to setting up booths with refrigeration facilities manned by disabled veterans to dispense the milk. 

There were several problems as irregular electricity supply. Breakdown of refrigeration machines and insufficient qualified technicians to look after these units were other headaches to be considered.

By that time I had prepared my paper on Co-extruded plastics satchels for milk. As soon as that was ready he moved quickly to implement this in a couple of dairies including the Bangalore Dairy.

It was an enormous success and this became the approved means of milk distribution all overt urban India.

Jollychayan thanked me for this innovation. Although I may been the catalyst, it was the immense respect everyone in India held for Jollychayan that made this a success.

This biography by Dr. M. V. Kurien does not tell all this backstory as I had already left for Finland.

At the wedding if my sister’s daughter in Chennai in 2999, he drew me aside and talked at length to me about milk distribution and how he had had to face much opposition to implement the pladtics satchets as the lobby of paper cartons was very strong. He had held on for as long as possible but finally permitted that distribution mode to enter into India but only as a parallel to the plastics satchets.

Even in Finland, when I talked to the major milk distributor, Valio, they held Dr. Kurien (Jollychayan) in great awe.

I was fortunate to be there at the crucial time of the launch of Operation Flood.

No, you were all wrong. Jolly and Molly’s daughter was not named Dolly, but the beautiful name of Nirmala! :-)