Linus Pauling: I can remember being interested in burning glasses, magnifying glass. In the small
town in eastern Oregon where I was as a small boy there was a movie, a motion picture
place, for a short while, at any rate, and the projector had large six-inch diameter
lenses. Once one of these broke and was thrown out so that I had a half of the large
lens. As I recall, I only had half of it but it was enough, of course, to focus the
sun's rays very well, work as a burning glass. I, I was interested in that. But I
didn't have any deep thought about it. A story that, an episode that I remember, that
is perhaps the one you are referring to is this. One day in Portland I was walking
along the street in the rain carrying an umbrella. The street lights were arcs, an
arc lamp, which means a very fine source, a quarter-inch in diameter, perhaps a little
larger of bright light. And with the umbrella in front of me I could see the street
light through the fabric and not only could I see the light itself but there was a
spectrum on each side and above and below, four of them, and then four more spread
out more at 45-degree angles in between these. And this phenomenon really did interest
me. It was some years before I found the explanation and of course I learned about
diffraction of light by a crossed-grating later on and realized that that explained
my observation.
Clip
Creator: Linus Pauling Clip ID: 1977v.66-start
Full Work
Creator: Robert Richter, WGBH-Boston Associated: Linus Pauling, Ava Helen Pauling, David Shoemaker, E. Bright Wilson, Jr., Frank Catchpool
