optical physics

Shimmering Glass

An Interview by Lenny Giteck David Knox has spent much of his adult life analyzing and manipulating light. In 1983, he founded a company called Directed Light, which invented and produced laser systems for many of the nation's A-list technology outfits — including General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Boston Scientific. In 1998, he sold Directed Light to a larger Japanese firm. "I decided to sell the laser company for two reasons," he recalls. "One, I had reached my highest level of incompetence in terms of being a manager, and I really wasn't having a whole lot of

Scientist, artist, inventor and glass-tile manufacturer David Knox knows a lot about the nature of light and how it can be manipulated in the laboratory, in a factory or in a watershape. Here, he explores the subject of light’s physical nature, sharing his own experience in applying optical physics to glass-tile production and defining ways in which those same principles apply to the art of shaping water in harmony with the materials that contain it.

Light Dances

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