Interview transcript

Charles and Gwen Kao, welcome to Stockholm.

Gwen Kao: Thank you.

Charles Kao: Thanks. It’s so lovely, it’s very nice.

It’s a beautiful place, its always dark but they know how to make light out of darkness. It’s been two months since the Nobel Prize was announced. How has the two months been? Very busy I imagine.

Charles Kao: It seems that it just came.

Gwen Kao: It seems like it’s a short while ago.

It’s been a whirlwind I imagine.

Charles Kao: Yes, it looks very easy.

Has it been welcome attention? Have you enjoyed all the …?

Gwen Kao: Yes and no right? Media, the Chinese media gets a little too much. They are overexcited.

Yes, a big star in America, but you must be a very big star in China now.

Charles Kao: They have and they made lots, too much, outside the front, but they think they should do whatever it is. It’s quite seemingly okay.

Yes, it’s not so bad to be a star, it’s quite nice. It’s 43 years since your original idea that optic fibers could transmit information over very long distances if you remove the impurities.

Charles Kao: That’s correct.

It must be a surprise to find that 43 years later the prize comes.

Charles Kao: That’s right, I have looked at that also.

If you look back to 43 years ago when you were working on it, I have heard Gwen say before that it was hard to believe that you were working on something so important that she got cross with you because you were late in the lab every night doing experiments.

Charles Kao: I don’t know which point because I don’t know when that is … I don’t know how to make it.

Were you certain that it would work? Did you know when you were doing the experiments that this was going to work?

Charles Kao: I think that maybe I am feeling that I should do it and try to make it more easier.

Did people believe you then?

Charles Kao: Some parts yes and it’s very nice also. I don’t know what I can put big way of saying.

You have said it. There were some years, in 1966 you thought of the theory and then it was not until 1970 the Corning Glass Works made the fibres. You had to wait; this must have been a difficult time waiting to see whether you were right.

Charles & Gwen Kao: Not really because there were ongoing experiments with the glass samples that they did have. They weren’t as pure as they should be, but the purity was coming down so they were getting near what they hoped would happen if they could get the impurity down, so they were still working on all the problems there. He didn’t really wait, it was just on-going.

What made you interested in science originally? Were you a scientist when you were a little child?

Charles Kao: I did quite a lot of things that or which were given by people really doing, making … we have to sort of try to see how we can do and make very good way of making it so good that we know they can serve the thing easier because these things, for me, I feel always that I like.

You were always interested in science, always liked to play with science.

Charles Kao: Yes, that’s right.

Gwen Kao: You want to hear a story what he did as a child?

Yes, please tell a story.

Gwen Kao: He was very … actually his first love was chemistry.

I am a chemist too.

Charles Kao: That’s good.

Gwen Kao: As a child he got hold of these … This is in China. I asked him how he managed to get hold of these dangerous chemicals. He said he just sent the driver off with a shopping list and the driver procured them. But I will tell you what he used to do with them. He found out, I can’t remember the chemical names, but he put them inside a mud bowl when it’s wet and let it dry and then you have your little bomb. He used to throw them at the cats or something, he tells me.

Charles Kao: Yes, that was even, one time, the little people, they liked to throw things and then we had to throw things.

Many great scientists began making bombs, I think. It’s a common starting point, but at least you have all your fingers.

Charles Kao: That’s right.

What drew you to physics? Why do you like physics and engineering?

Charles Kao: Physics is good, but I sort of made it very much easier.

Gwen Kao: Why? Because his parents discovered these dangerous experiments with chemistry and threw all his stuff away including a bottle of cyanide, I understand. I don’t know how his parents disposed of it.

Charles Kao: That one he actually…

Gwen Kao: Anyway, his parents confiscated it all.

Your cyanide as well? Bombs and cyanide.

Charles Kao: That’s right.

Gwen Kao: He was only ten I think, no, a bit more than that, 12 or 13. Anyway he was not allowed to play with his chemicals anymore so his father he thought it would be safer to buy him one of these electronic kits, building wires and things. That’s how he diverted his attention.

That seems like a good investment, it paid off.

Charles Kao: It is because it’s not very easy for the front part, it’s quite difficult when a beginning comes up. It isn’t very easy to do.

I don’t know if I have got it right into stick, but I certainly found electronics very difficult to understand myself.

Charles Kao: It is.

Yes, it’s a complex subject when one gets into it.

Charles Kao: Sometimes, many times some people put some things … I don’t know what I should be doing.

Gwen Kao: I think that when trying to make this crystal wireless set, then they couldn’t get the thing to work and between him and his co-conspirators they found that if they kept throwing the crystal on the ground or something it improved or something, right?

Charles Kao: Yes.

Gwen Kao: So they kept on throwing these crystals on the floor.

That is a good background of experimentation.

Charles Kao: It is a very nice place.

Did you know, when in 1970 and there abouts, when you saw the fibers coming out of Corning and you could see that you were getting varied long range of transmission of information. Did you realise then how important it would be?

Charles Kao: Yes, I think I made very definite thing that one has to be done using the flying … and these things also, all these things coming in really makes it very nice to do that sort of work.

It must be a source of enormous pride to think of all these information being transmitted using …

Charles Kao: Not mostly.

Not mostly pride, mostly excitement maybe. This week is going to be a busy week. Are you looking forward to so much activity over the coming four five days?

Gwen Kao: I think he is enjoying himself.

Clearly.

Charles & Gwen Kao: Sometimes like this time just as I had to come out to your interview, to Sweden, so I wanted to make the correct things.

Thank you very much indeed. It means a great deal to us that you are here.

Charles Kao: That’s one of my other things that I wanted to say, I think you have done and wanted to know some of these things. It’s very good and it was fun.

I am very glad that you are pleased with what we are doing so that is fantastic. Good, thank you very much for this interview. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you and I wish you an extremely enjoyable week.

Charles & Gwen Kao: Thank you very much.

Did you find any typos in this text? We would appreciate your assistance in identifying any errors and to let us know. Thank you for taking the time to report the errors by sending us an e-mail.