Great leaps of light

Since 1980, the number of bits per second that can be sent down an optical fiber has increased some 10 millionfold. That's remarkable even by the standards of late-20th-century electronics. It's more than the jump in the number of transistors on chips during that same period, as described by Moore's Law. There ought to be a law here, too. Call it Keck's Law, in honor of Donald Keck. He's the coinventor of low-loss optical fiber and has tracked the impressive growth in its capacity. Maybe giving the trend a name of its own will focus attention on one of the world's most unsung industrial achievements.