The character arc of Narinder Singh Kapany
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 31 October 1926 in Moga, Punjab, into a Sikh family. Between then and his death sit schooling in Dehradun, a degree from Agra University, service as an Indian Ordnance Factories officer, a move to Imperial College London in 1952, the first good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibres in 1953, a doctorate in optics in 1955, the coining of the term fibre optics in Scientific American in 1960, the first book on the subject, over 120 patents, a Nobel Prize that went elsewhere, and a posthumous Padma Vibhushan in 2021. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Narinder Singh Kapany?
He named the whole field. Somebody else collected the prize.
He was born in Moga in Punjab, into a Sikh Khatri family of the Sodhi clan who were landlords and who claim descent from the third Sikh guru. He went to school in Dehradun, graduated from Agra University, and served as an officer in the Indian Ordnance Factories Service, which is a long way from a laboratory.
In 1952 he went to Imperial College London to work on a doctorate in optics, which he took from the University of London in 1955. At Imperial he worked with Harold Hopkins on transmission through fibres, and in 1953 the two of them achieved good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibres for the first time. People had tried sending images down fibres before; what Hopkins and Kapany did was make the image good enough to be worth having. Together with the almost simultaneous development of optical cladding by a Dutch scientist, that work started the field.
Then he named it. In 1960 he coined the term fibre optics in an article in Scientific American, wrote the first book about the new field, and became its most prominent researcher, writer and spokesperson. Naming a field is not a small thing: it is how a scattered set of experiments becomes a subject that can be funded, taught and argued about.
His work ran wider than the thing he is remembered for: fibre-optic communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution measurement. He held over 120 patents, sat on the National Inventors Council, and was an international fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As an entrepreneur and business executive he specialised in innovation and the management and transfer of technology.
The prize did not come. Fortune named him one of seven unsung heroes of the twentieth century for what it called a Nobel Prize deserving invention, which is a polite way of saying the committee looked elsewhere. India offered him a post as scientific adviser to its defence minister, put to him by the country first prime minister, and awarded him the Padma Vibhushan, its second highest civilian honour, posthumously in 2021. He was also a collector, and worked through the Sikh Foundation on the preservation of Sikh artwork.
The moments
Narinder Singh Kapany's timeline.
The 1920s
Born in Moga
Everyday. Moga, Punjab, 1926.
The 1940s
Dehradun, then Agra
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A school in the hills and a degree at Agra.
An ordnance officer
Everyday, and it changed his direction. A government factory job, before any of the science.
The 1950s
Stay an officer, or go and study light
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go to London, taken, or stay in the service. He transmitted the first good image through a fibre bundle the next year, and named the field seven years after that.
Imperial College London
Milestone, and it changed everything. He left a secure post to go and study light.
An image down a bundle of fibres
Milestone, and it changed everything. Others had tried. Theirs was the first good picture.
A field starts
Milestone, and it changed everything. Two laboratories, almost at once, and a field existed.
The 1960s
He coins fibre optics
Milestone, and it changed everything. One magazine article, and the field had a name.
A post he was offered at home
Milestone, and it changed his direction. His own country asked him back to advise it.
Wider than the fibres
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Five fields, not one.
The 1970s
A hundred and twenty patents
Milestone, and it changed everything. A hundred and twenty patents, and three fellowships.
The 1980s
Technology, as a business
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He went from the laboratory into the business of moving inventions.
The 1990s
The Sikh Foundation
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He spent part of the money on keeping the artwork.
An unsung hero
Setback, and it changed everything. A magazine said the prize should have been his. It was not.
The 2020s
He dies at ninety four
Setback, and it changed everything. The honour arrived the year after he died.
Every phone call, every video and every page you load travels down glass he helped work out how to use. What he set moving is the whole vocabulary of a field, coined in one magazine article in 1960, by a man the Nobel committee never called.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His is a life where the recognition went to other people and the work went everywhere. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Narinder Singh Kapany: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Narinder Singh Kapany's character arc?
Did Narinder Singh Kapany invent fibre optics?
Why is Narinder Singh Kapany called an unsung hero?
What else did Narinder Singh Kapany work on?
What honour did India give Narinder Singh Kapany?
What did Narinder Singh Kapany collect?
Where does this timeline of Narinder Singh Kapany's life come from?
More character arcs
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Sources
- Narinder Singh Kapany, English Wikipedia biography.
- His 1960 Scientific American article, which coined the term fibre optics.
- His first book on the field, and his 120 patents.
- The Fortune list of seven unsung heroes of the twentieth century.