The Fiber That Binds Us

“At a glance, optical fiber looks like plastic fishing line, but there’s a lot more to it. It’s actually thin strands of extremely pure glass — silicon dioxide — that are flexible enough to be bundled into cables that can bend and loop. In the first step of the manufacturing process, which engineers call laydown, glass is crystallized into a fluffy solid form, like how cotton candy is spun on a stick.” It’s hard to imagine something that is spun like cotton candy but that gives people and even more addictive rush. But here we are. WaPo (Gift on Article) on the fiber that connects us. How the World Wide Web gets spun out of thin air.