Engineering in Plain Sight

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2 Communications

Introduction

Communication isn’t unique to the human species, but telecommunication is. Sharing information beyond a shouting distance requires plenty of innovation. Many of humankind’s most significant developments have been ways of sending and receiving messages across expanses. From smoke signals and carrier pigeons to GPS and the internet, telecommunications have profoundly shaped the ways we live, work, and play.

This chapter explores how we send and receive information over long distances, and, most important, the infrastructure that makes it all possible—or at least it does at the time of writing. No other part of ...