Women in Science and Engineering
Stony Brook Laser Teaching Center

First Meeting - 23 October 2003

At our first meeting we started by getting acquainted and discussing individual interests, both inside and outside of school. Several in the group were very involved with music, while others mentioned sports, math, genetics or biology. As illustrated by the pictures above (click on them to see a larger version), we then started doing some demonstrations and discussing how they might be related to people's interests and everyday experiences. The demos included: finding the dominant eye; playing with the "pig mirage" toy (it works with concave mirrors); checking out tuning forks and sound waves displayed on an oscilloscope; playing with the super-sensitive Michelson interferometer; checking out the "surfer" toy (the shiny surface of the liquid is from total internal reflection); and investigating colors revealed by the diffraction grating glasses.