Balancing Perfection and Achievement: Life Lessons & Optics
Cather Simpson
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
One of my favorite things about teaching optics is the many-faceted life lessons on balancing optimization and achievement that I can slip in when I work with students at all stages, from university freshmen to postgraduates. For those who don’t continue in optics, I hope these “softer” lessons help guide them to success in whatever they pursue.
Students in university lab courses often focus on understanding and applying optical principles to measure optical outcomes—to achieve the right focal point, identify the prism or lens material, steer the beam to the right place, or get the telescopic magnification right. Proper design and precise alignment are key. Doglegs illustrate how complexity can be used to simplify, meaning that students can learn how to iteratively walk a system towards alignment. They learn that the more you optimize the better your results. Perfectionists and the mechanically inclined love it; big-picture thinkers and the less patient find it frustrating. However, that thread that links the logical application of focused effort and precise adjustment to excellent results is hard for any student to miss.
In the undergrad lab, it’s not so much about finding balance—the “time to stop optimizing the optics” is determined by the lab period length. For the more advanced postgraduate or postdoctorates, though, that decision becomes self-driven.
In the research settings I’m most familiar with, optics is a much more complex tool used to illuminate the behavior of physical and chemical systems. Time-resolved femtosecond absorption or Raman spectroscopy involves interlacing commercial and home-built instruments, lots of optical “tinker toys” and multiple types of linear and nonlinear optical processes.
Temperature and humidity can wreak havoc on alignment from day to day, or even sometimes hour to hour. A PhD student might take a year or more to build an instrument and get it working well. However, in the end, it is still just a tool used to probe, and it is the behavior that is ultimately the focus of the research.
The data quality from such a system depends exquisitely on its optical alignment. The temptation is to keep optimizing, to squeeze out another 1% improvement, motivated by “I’ll get better data.” At some point, however, one must stop optimizing and measure. Identifying the right time for that is hard for many optics students.
It’s a common trap to fall into, and not just for the optical perfectionist. Entire project management systems have been developed to help companies decide when to stop improving a software or hardware product and move it from research into development and production. Success in just about anything aligns with being able to confidently decide “this is good enough.” I explicitly discuss these challenging times in the laser lab with students as key moments for them to develop this important life skill.
These are just two examples that show how optics provides very fertile ground for helping students succeed, to evolve into successful leaders and contributors to anything they choose to do. Optics also provides educators like me with a versatile and invaluable tool for helping my students grow and learn.
Dr. Nina Novikova as a PhD student optimizing the femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy system in the Photon Factory at the University of Auckland.
Undergraduate, honors, master’s, and PhD students (left to right) illustrate the evolution of an optics education.
I didn’t know John Greivenkamp as well as I would have liked, but his dedication to students strongly resonates with me. His contributions to education in optics and photonics and to SPIE is legendary, and I am delighted to be part of this publication in his honor.
