Optical soliton: A memoir of its discovery and future prospects

Abstract

Fifty years are about to pass since the discovery of optical solitons in glass fibers. The subject is still actively pursued and various new developments are observed. As one of the authors of the original paper on the optical soliton in Applied Physics Letters, which has attracted over three thousand citations, I feel much honored to be invited to write this memoir on this memorial occasion. Here I will reveal episodes related to the optical soliton's discovery and developments in its use as an information carrier. I will also present a new perspective on information entropy and its relation to thermodynamics with some viewpoints on life functions.