Charles K Kao Quotes About His Life and Teachings

If you are searching for a few Charles K Kao quotes to read, you have stumbled upon the right article.

Today in this article, we have decided to let you know about the life of Charles K Kao and share Charles K Kao quotes.

Read till the end and get a chance to know all about Charles K Kao quotes. Also, you will realize exactly why those quotes are still relevant.

First, we will give you a proper introduction to Charles K Kao, and then we will get on to the quote parts. Though some of the Charles K Kao quotes are enough to know about his life, it is better to have an idea about him beforehand.

So we want you to be patient. Rest assured that it will be worth the wait!

Who is Charles K Kao

On November 4, 1933, K Kao was born in Shanghai, China, and died on September 23, 2018, in Sha Tin, Hong Kong.

His colorful life was full of stories. If you want to know him for real, you have to look a little deeper. In this article, we are providing you with just that.

He belonged to very rich family background. This was no surprise that Charles K Kao later innovated new technologies!

He is best known as ‘the father of fiber optic communications.’ He brought some massive changes in communication.

In 1948, Charles K Kao and his family left China and went to Hong Kong. He went to St Joseph’s College in 1952 to finish high school.

The University of Greenwich was known as Woolwich Polytechnic, where he graduated in Electrical engineering in 1957 with flying colors. He decided to get a doctorate after that. So he joined the University of London and got his degree under the supervision of Professor Harold Barlow in 1965.

Meanwhile, Charles K Kao was spending some time in Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, where he got his first break in Electrical engineering.

After getting his Ph.D. degree, Charles Kao collaborated with George Hockham and co-wrote a paper on fiber optic cables.

Charles K Kao quotes

Charles K Kao’s Breakthrough

At first, the world failed to perceive what was going on with optical fiber. But it didn’t take that much time for people to realize how big was the innovation and ideas of Charles K Kao.

Soon Charles K Kao and his works were getting acclaimed by world-famous scholars. Everybody finally became interested in giving him what he needed, the acclimation to people.

At least 20 famous universities, including Yale University, University of Toronto, University of Glasgow, Princeton University, University of Greenwich, and the University of Hong Kong, gave him honorary doctorate degrees, which were hard to get at the time.

He finally got the Nobel prize for his unmatchable contribution to the world of physics in 2009.

nobel prize

But do you know why Charles K Kao is so famous that we are in debt to him today?

As we all know, once upon a time, there was no internet whatsoever. We had to wait forever to hear from our friends or family members.

Still, contacting one end from another became easy when telecommunication and the radio were invented. However, no one can say that the world of communication took a u-turn because of this.

So in the twentieth century, scholars started to think that optic fiber could be the solution to the problem. They decided to do something with the help of this particular lean fiber.

But the process was not as easy as the thinking. However, Charles K Kao showed in his papers that transferring lights through fiber optics is possible without losing effectiveness.

It took him several years to see his ideas come into reality. But thankfully, it happened, eventually!

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Charles K Kao left this earth in 2018 in Hong Kong after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years. But his amazing contribution will always remain in this world.

Charles K Kao quotes

Now that you have known everything you need to know about the man himself let’s look at some of the best Charles K Kao quotes.

But reading these Charles K Kao quotes, you will know him even better.

Not always you can create an idea out of nowhere. It’s a long process, and you need to be patient to see the result.

This one is one of the best Charles K Kao quotes.

According to this quote, people say that you can do unbelievable things if you rest your brain for some time. Ideas can come into your mind just like a flash when you do that.

But Charles K Kao thinks that is not always the case!

You can’t always think of doing nothing, and ideas would somehow magically appear inside your brain. You must invest time to think clearly and properly, even presenting a new idea.

But a dream does not come into reality until you test run it several times. Perhaps you would fail a dozen times before you finally get it right. If your idea is right, you will eventually get there no matter how hard the process.

That is exactly what Charles K Kao did in his own life. He spent years constantly researching how to improve the world of telecommunication. The change didn’t happen overnight.

Your younger self tends to lose temper more often and your beliefs mean the world to you.

Human nature tends to change over time. Whenever you start to grow up physically and mentally, your perspective tends to change. You stop reacting to things the same way you did in the past.

As you mature, you start to know how to handle things calmly. Generally, we all are hot-tempered in our childhood. We could go to any extent to prove a point.

But now that we are much older, we try to figure out how to get the ultimate result. So we start to think differently with a newfound maturity.

My idea was too good to be true, which is why nobody thought that it would be possible in reality. Even I failed to express what I was thinking inside

Charles K Kao faced a lot of trouble along the way while trying to bring a huge change into this world. He went door to door to every telecommunication company to convince them to pursue his dream.

But most of the time, he failed to make them understand what he understood long before. However, the British Post Office Telecommunications Laboratory and NTT in Japan were interested in Kao’s thoughts.

Nobody thought that glass fibers could send signals without breaking apart. But Charles K Kao was the first to figure out that glass fibers could provide a huge change in the communication world if processed properly. We don’t need those copper wires to transfer information.

This idea was like a myth at the time. Maybe Charles K Kao himself was somewhat unable to put his thoughts into exact words. People never wanted to believe in him or his thoughts anyway.

Two of my siblings died before me and my brother were born. So, our parents wanted us to lead a careful life. But they weren’t always there for us, but they made sure that we are being taken care of.

The family history of Charles K Kao is tragic if we look at it.

The first two siblings of Charles K Kao died tragically because of a measles virus transmission. Charles wasn’t even born when this tragic incident happened to his family. His mother, too, wasn’t physically too strong to give birth to another anytime soon.

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But in the years 1933 and 1937, Charles K Kao and his brother were born, respectively.

So it was quite obvious that both he and his brother Timothy would get proper care from their parents because of the earlier losses.

But Charles K Kao hailed from the rich family background. Both his father and mother were scholars. His father was a lawyer, while his mother too was a poet.

So his parents were not always there for him. Nurses and the housemaids took care of him and his brother when they were little. He rarely got to see his mom and dad unless there was some occasion.

I don’t know exactly why I am not good at expressing my feelings. But I am indeed an introvert. Now that I am a full-grown man, I still feel uncomfortable whenever I go to a party or somewhere like that. I think I am exactly like my father.

In Charles K Kao’s own words, he was not quite good with his words. He was an introvert when it came to talking to people.

Maybe that’s because he never found someone to talk to when he was just a kid. At first, he didn’t even have to go to school. His teacher used to come to his home to teach him and his brother.

So naturally, he had no childhood friends. Also, he wasn’t allowed to do everything he wanted. Likewise, his mindset was not like talkative people when he became an adult.

So he thought that maybe he was like his father, who was cool and calm too!

I received my primary education in a school in Shanghai. The founders of that school were pandits and they just got back from France. I felt free while I was there. Most of the students belonged to the rich and they all were quite interesting to talk with.

Charles K Kao went to Shanghai World School to receive his primary education. There he learned French along with English.

He tried to explain what kind of education made him what he is now through this quote. Renowned Chinese scholars originally established the school.

Optical fibre systems are bound to transform the world of communication in a way like never before. The brand new fiber systems are capable of sending signals even if the distance is far away. That too, without breaking, and this way the communication system will take a step forward.

Before Charles K Kao, using optical fiber to send signals from one place far away to another without disruption was impossible. Then again, the whole transmission process was not smooth as well. So there was a need to find a better option to make people’s lives easier.

Charles K Kao presented his outstanding ideas and claimed that his innovation could change the world of communication forever. This is why he started the Terabit Technology program.

Charles K Kao net worth

This is the last section of the article Charles K Kao quotes. Here we will let you know about Charles K Kao net worth.

Charles K Kao spent his entire life contributing to physics and how the whole telecommunication system could be improved. Now that you have found this article, that would never be possible without him!

So basically, we have to thank Charles K Kao for everything we do on the internet. We can’t even imagine what the world would be like without fiber optics!

He died in 2018, and at that time, his net worth was around $500,000.

Final thoughts

Finally, before taking our leave, here is a small summary of the whole article.

The fiber optic cables of his dreams are now filling many people’s dreams today. It is now nearly impossible to think what would happen to this world if Charles K Kao hadn’t invented fiber optic cables.

Also, Charles K Kao quotes are worth reading as much as his innovative ideas were. Surely you figured that out while reading his valuable quotes of him.