The trouble was how to transmit that focused data reliably from point A to point B

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When some of the photons are allowed to escape, the result is an amplified, concentrated beam of light—"light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," or LASER. That light has a frequency; it is wobbling at a rate of millions of millions of times a second, and each of those wobbles can be modulated to carry data. That data then travels at the speed of light.
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The trouble was how to transmit that focused data reliably from point A to point B. Light can be carried by water—just imagine a nighttime fountain lit by purple light from below—but light can’t carry information through water very far. You need the light waves to maintain their strength and definition in order for the information they carry, encoded in the height or frequency of these waves, to be understood. Back in the late 19th century, a Viennese medical team identified only as “Dr. Roth and Prof. Reuss” experimented with guiding light through bent glass rods to illuminate body parts during surgery. With the arrival of the laser, scientists saw the possibility of guiding information across many miles with very little loss of accuracy.