Saturday, March 12, 2022

Building as Prism

Eleven days ago, I was going over to the French Building to run an NMR. The French building is a mostly Chemistry building at Duke that was built with funds from Melinda French Gates, the former wife of Bill Gates. You know who he is. Anyhow, as I was heading downstairs to submit my samples (NMR machines are usually in the basement due to their weight), I noticed a beautiful rainbow on the floor. 

As I got closer, it disappeared. I was in a hurry so I ran my NMR and then came back up to explore a bit more. If you walked toward it, it got smaller then evaporated. If you went past it, you could see a small slit through a staircase where the light was streaming through. This is a long building so the light is about 50 yards from where it enters the glass at the end of the building. I moved around a bit and you could make it get bigger and brighter.


Wow, that's pretty cool. A little physics experiment in the chemistry building. Given the length of the building, I suspect that this is something that only happens for a short period of time during the year, like on March 1st. If I don't retire in the meantime, maybe I'll check next year. I went back a couple of days ago and looked for my friend. Eventually I was able to spot it, small and way upstairs.


Cool science is all around us. We just have to be on the lookout for it.