Undersea cable
We’ve all gone wireless now, with our ability to run businesses from a tiny smartphone while sitting in a coffee shop. Our ability to be so carefree relies on things like this. This is a cross-section of a submarine communications cable. Cables like this one lay along the seabed, connecting America with Europe and Asia, and crisscrossing the whole planet. Without them, you wouldn’t even be able to read this article.
A little like a motherboard on a computer, the wires that make the internet actually work are all around us. They’re above our heads suspended from telephone poles, and under our feet running through the ground beneath us, as well as across the sea. It seems ironic that this giant wire is the key to our wireless existence.