How does light carry data and information, i.e in fiber optic cables?

Question

How does light carry data and information, i.e in fiber optic cables?

In: Physics

Answer 1

So everyone has already more or less summed it up as On vs Off, zeroes and ones, all that good stuff.

but if you want to get really interesting: we can actually do multiple “streams” of data on the same piece of fiber. How? *Different colors of light.*

We do the same on/off thing described by other commenters, but with light of different wavelenths (colors) on the same piece of fiber optic cable, at the same time.

It’s called Wavelength Division Multiplexing, multiplexing means sending more than one stream of information, so Wavelenth Division Multiplexing is sending multiple streams of information, divided by using different wavelengths/colors.

I know it’s not directly answering your question, but it’s a pretty cool thing we can do!