The Secret Life of Undersea Cables

A public lecture from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies on the physical layer almost nobody thinks about: the fibre-optic cables on the seabed that carry essentially all intercontinental internet traffic. The talk runs from the first transatlantic telegraph message sent from Valentia Island in 1858 through to today's global deep-sea fibre network, and on to a newer use for it. The same cables that move data can be read as sensors, picking up earthquakes, ocean temperature and other signals about a changing planet. One hour, in the basement lecture room at the Royal Society of Antiquaries on Merrion Square, free to attend. Why go: cable infrastructure is the part of the stack engineers depend on daily and rarely see, and Ireland sits on a landing point for a lot of it. Best for infrastructure and network engineers, and anyone who likes knowing how the pipes actually work.