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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Durham, NC

Why I love lasers

An optical bench in the Laser Optics Laboratory at Ames Research Center, crowded with mirrors, lenses and beam paths. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Lasers" page — read by families in Durham, NC.
An optical bench in the Laser Optics Laboratory at Ames Research Center, crowded with mirrors, lenses and beam paths. NASA · Public domain
  • The light goes in one straight line and stays there.
  • It can cut metal or read a disc.
  • All the light waves are marching together.

You can love lasers in Durham.

What it really is

A laser makes light waves that all line up, so the beam stays tight.

Three things to try today

  1. Shine a flashlight and a laser pointer at a wall far away.
  2. Compare the size of the spots.
  3. Say why they are different.
Researcher Dana Lynch works at the laser optics bench in the Laser Optics Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Lasers" page — read by families in Durham, NC.
Researcher Dana Lynch works at the laser optics bench in the Laser Optics Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

This page is written to the child, not about them. If a kid in Durham, NC loves lasers, here is the grown-up version of what they already feel. The Durham–Chapel Hill, NC metro area has about 625,485 residents, ranking 93rd in the country.

Coherence explained with two spots on a wall. No equations needed.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Durham, NC →

Love something else too

The last of four gold solar array wings is lowered into place on the Orion spacecraft's European Service Module. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Solar Power" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love the sunTwo large gantry 3D printers extrude curved concrete walls of subscale habitat structures side by side at NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love 3D Printing" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love 3D printersPale rock outcroppings breaking through prairie grass in Big Cypress National Preserve. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Geology" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love the earthCylindrical rock cores laid out in trays at the USGS Core Research Center, showing bands of different rock layers. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rocks" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love rocksThree orange lava fountains jet more than 100 feet above the fissure 8 cone during the 2018 Kilauea eruption. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Volcanoes" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love volcanoesA jagged crack running across desert ground with a yellow tape measure stretched over it, marking surface rupture from the 2019 Searles Valley earthquake. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Earthquakes" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love earthquakesHundreds of dinosaur bones still embedded in the tilted rock wall inside the Dinosaur Quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Fossils" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love fossilsThe historic quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument, built over steeply tilted Jurassic rock layers that hold a dinosaur bone bed. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Dinosaurs" page — read by families in Durham, NC.Why I love dinosaurs

Near Durham

Why I love lasers, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Durham