iridescence

When asked what an "optical physicist" does, I sometimes reply that I'm basically a professional choreographer.  What I choreograph, of course, is not lithe dancers in leotards and toe shoes, but rather the countless invisible balls of energy whose source, directly or indirectly, is our sun.   That's a colorful description, but it accurately reflects the fact that I've spent my entire professional career coaxing, urging, manipulating and orchestrating light in a completely conscious manner with tools both simple and complex.      Armed with a liberal arts education and majors in art history and American studies, I founded an industrial-laser company in 1983 and spent the next 18 years learning how to choreograph balls of energy into extremely precise line dances.  There was nobody out there to teach us