Posted by Christina Folz, OPN Managing Editor

And now for more optics limericks taken from the Winter 1977 Optics News (the precursor to OPN).  In case you missed the first bunch, check out my earlier post and get inspired! OPN is now accepting submissions for a new limerick contest.  Send your submissions to opn@osa.org or post them  directly into the “comments” section of this blog. (Note about the second and third limericks: Peter Franken was the OSA president at the time of the contest, so that is why the poets chose to skewer him in their verses.)  

Experimental Technique
There is no faint penumbra of doubt
In the lab one should not be without
A light optical hammer
To give things a slam, or
That final adjustment—a clout.

—R.I. MacDonald
Ottawa, Canada

The election of Peter A. Franken
Was a shock, and the news slowly sank in.
He achieved this great fame
When he wrote down his name
On the ballot when filling the blank in.

—S. Bashkin
Tucson, Ariz.

There was a bright fellow named Planck,
Whose thoughts were exceedingly franck.
He showed us his verve
With the black-body curve,
Planck, for your constant, we thanck.

—J.E. Dennis
Rockville, Md.

An optical physicist, Franken
A gigawatt laser did sanction
To bake breakfast toast
Using third-order ghosts
At nine hundred one degrees Ranken.

—F.M. Phelps
Mt. Pleasant, Mich.

2007-11 November, Miscellaneous Optics, OSA osa, humor, scientists