What Is The Use Of Bent Glass Rod?

Bent glass rods were first invented by John Tyndall in 1854 so that light could travel through a curved stream of water and since then it has been used for a variety of different reasons.

Some of the past uses of bent glass rods were as follows:

• Alexander Graham Bell, the famous inventor of the telephone, used bent glass rods in 1880. He found that when sunlight was shining onto a mirror, the vibrations of sound could be transmitted and detected on the receiving end of light.

• In 1880, bent glass rods were also used to light people's homes when inventor William Wheeler devised a method of placing a lamp in a certain position so it would reflect off the rods that were coated in an reflective material. A similar method was used in 1888 during medical procedures by Reuss of Vienna in order to illuminate the inside of the body so he could operate.

• Bent glass rods were involved in the early production of television as John Logie Baird and Clarence W. Hansell used transparent rods which could transmit images. Glass rods were since replaced by fiber optic rods.

Optical fiber is now made from extremely pure, fine glass that is flexible and therefore not as fragile as glass. It is also extremely useful because it can be as fine as a human hair and they are often used in fiber optic communications.

Optical fiber is also used in fiber optic sensors and also in illuminations; much like the early bent glass rods were. Optical fibers are often used to direct sunlight around a room or building, usually in buildings where one area receives a lot of light and the rest of the building has very little.