special topics in optical physics

Lasers shoot like pinballs across a train set of glass and mirrors and tunnels of different sizes and positions. Plastic of the kind that used to separate freezer cases keeps the table top display protected. Contrary to the exciting DANGER signs pasted on the doors and positioned around the interior, the laser's are off. My friend pulls back the plastic flaps to allow a closer view. The end result, he points to one area the way one might to indicate which end is up, is the rainbow display created by the intense beams.

A high schooler accompanies us on the lab tour. He might intern for the summer. I know I learned that light is separated in waves back in physics class and that our eye can only see certain kinds of light but I can only imagine creating a rainbow with Crayola's. Maybe the kid is thinking the same thing. I'm stuck. I can't see how all the little pieces of glass, painstakingly polished at the workbench next door and then lovingly arranged like a Hummel collection will produce a rainbow with a story. These researchers see more than just Roy G. Biv when reviewing the printouts. Every beam shot through each substrate (usually a gas...why gas?) tells a story. What doesn't have a backstory these days?

Somehow fluids are involved. Microscopic ones. Even though I yawned more than was socially acceptable due to the dim, laser friendly lighting pre coffee, I was paying attention. Trying to leap from microfluids to their medical applications: a new test for diabetes. There were other applications at work in this space the size of a two car garage. Something to do with defense, though that was confidential, and even if I was privy to the details, they'd be lost on me.

Our friends generously shared the place where they spend many of their waking hours, the kind of place requiring many more hours accumulating knowledge in order to function there. Where does the urge come from to move beyond the tentative steps of a high school lab intern to the rocky expanse that is the study of science to the demanding terrain entailed in the pursuit of original research.

My understanding of this place was dimmer than the lighting but I left with the charge you get when you're around people who are engaged with their work, who have a passion for something complex and relatively obscure, who are looking so intensely beyond themselves that you want to take in the view.