Future
As of the year 2000, about 15% of United States consumption of germanium is used for infrared optics technology and 50% for fiber-optics. Over the past 20 years, infrared use has consistently decreased; fiber optic demand, however, is slowly increasing. There is discussion on the over-production of fiber-optic networks and that 30-50% of current lines are unused dark fiber, suggesting a future reduction in demand. Worldwide, demand is increasing dramatically as countries such as China are expanding fiber-optic based telecommunication throughout the country.
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Famous quotes containing the word future:
“Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes.”
—Pierre Simon De Laplace (1749–1827)
“If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another—and always into a better set—things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean—there is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)