hosting by

Excited Atoms and Stimulated Emissions
Sex education with eye protection
by David Lytle

A lecture presented to the 7th grade class at the Isaac Assimov Academy for Gifted Children, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Presented by Dr. Lloyd James, Ph.D.

First of all, I want to thank members of the physical science club for helping me out with last night's laser demonstration. I was very impressed by the ability of middle-school students to rig together an acoustically modulated laser projector on such short notice. As you know, I'm in Nova Scotia by accident, and am most thankful to the many parents at the Assimov School who intervened with Canadian immigration authorities and arranged for my freedom, pending the resolution of certain matters. I'll most likely be escorted back to Iceland tomorrow morning, but I wanted to thank everyone one last time before I leave.

The subject of today's lecture is often a sticky one, but parents and faculty who know my work thought I would bring a special perspective. The topic is sex, and my perspective is this: Forget about birds and bees and flowers. It's all a bunch of sentimental mumbo-jumbo. You are the future scientists of the world, and the best way to explain sex is to explain it in electromagnetic concepts that govern the physical forces of the universe.

I've called today's lecture "Excited Atoms and Stimulated Emissions." If you want to know how reproduction occurs, there is no better way to understand it than by looking at a working laser. It all begins with an excited atom. Not a normal, every day, siting-on-the couch-watching-television atom, but an atom juiced up with electricity. In human sexuality, many things can cause a similar state of excitement -- sometimes it's raging hormones, sometimes it’s deep, romantic love, and sometimes it's a six-pack of cheap malt liquor.

True sexual relations, however, require more than mere excitement. Inside the laser cavity, our atom's higher state of excitation is strictly temporary, and when the atom returns to its original, lower state of energy, it gives off a photon. Kind of like a tip to the cosmic cab driver. The process of creating this new photon is called spontaneous emission. It's not to be confused with actual sex. It's simply ordinary light, similar to the light from a neon sign or the glow from the face of young lad watching Anna Kournikova play tennis.

Things inside a laser tube get interesting when you have two excited atoms. What happens, for example, if this photon hooks up with an excited atom hanging out inside the laser cavity? Let's go over the situation again: There's an excited atom climbing the walls of the laser tube, brimming over with electromagnetic lust, when it’s struck by a shooting photon. You may know this feeling -- all revved up and nowhere to go, then POW!, somebody or something strikes you from out of the blue.

What happens? Our excited atom gets even more excited and shoots off a photon of its own! And this is no ordinary photon. The new photon is exactly the same wavelength as the first photon; it has exactly the same phase, and it travels in exactly the same direction as the original photon. Boys and girls, this is the real thing. This is what we call Stimulated Emission. This is as good as it gets inside a laser tube.

Who needs eggs and sperm? In the beginning, God created light and he damn well knew what he was doing. Just think about it, kids -- every time you turn on a laser you are seeing one continuous orgasm of photonic activity, the result of which is a beautiful new laser beam.

This concludes my lecture tonight, and I would stay for questions, but I see that several gentlemen in uniforms have arrived in the auditorium with the intent of escorting me off the premises. Thank you for having me. Remember: Stay excited.