It depended on the phenomenon of total internal reflections, which can confine light in material surrounding by other materials with lower refractive index, such as glass in the air. In the mid 1840s, Swiss physicist Daniel Collodon and French physicist Jacques Babinet showed that light could be guided along jet of water for fountain display. British physicist John Tyndall popularized light guiding in a demonstration he first used in 1854, guiding light in a jet of water flowing from a tank. By the turn of the century, inventors realized that bent quartz rods could carry light, and patented th...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate