Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

207 results found

fiber optics

(Encyclopedia)fiber optics, transmission of digitized messages or information by light pulses along hair-thin glass or plastic fibers. Each fiber is surrounded by a cladding having a high index of refractance so th...

optics

(Encyclopedia)optics, scientific study of light. Physical optics is concerned with the genesis, nature, and properties of light; physiological optics with the part light plays in vision; and geometrical optics with...

fiber

(Encyclopedia)fiber, threadlike strand, usually pliable and capable of being spun into a yarn. Many different fibers are known to be usable; some 40 of these are of commercial importance, and others are of local or...

glass fiber

(Encyclopedia)glass fiber: see fiberglass.

fiber, dietary

(Encyclopedia)fiber, dietary, bulky part of food that cannot be broken down by enzymes in the small intestine of the digestive system. Almost all natural fiber comes from plants. Although fiber has little nutrition...

raphia, fiber

(Encyclopedia)raphia: see raffia.

lens, in optics

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Lenses lens, device for forming an image of an object by the refraction of light. In its simplest form it is a disk of transparent substance, commonly glass, with its two surfaces curved or wi...

Richardson

(Encyclopedia)Richardson, city (1990 pop. 74,840), Dallas and Collins counties, N Tex., a suburb of Dallas; founded in the 1850s, inc. as a city 1956. Richardson manufactures telecommunications equipment, medical d...

Corning

(Encyclopedia)Corning, city (2020 pop. 10,551), Steuben co., S N.Y., on the Chemung River, in a dairy and vineyard region; settled 1788, inc. as a city 1890. The glas...

photonics

(Encyclopedia)photonics, the science and technology based on and concerned with the controlled flow of photons, or light particles. It is the optical equivalent of electronics, and the two technologies coexist in s...