HICKORY – Laser beams, acrylic prisms and glow walls are on display at the Catawba Science Center thanks to the new Light Moves exhibit.
“What we are doing here is exploring how light actually works,” said Phil Hawn, director of exhibits.
The new exhibit uses the photographs taken by high speed and strobe photography inventor Dr. Harold "Doc" Edgerton.
The photographs are on loan from the Hickory Museum of Art.
Displays are used to allow visitors to visualize how light can change perceptions.
“Manipulate. Touch. This is what this (exhibit) is for,” Hawn said.
The exhibit was sponsored by US Conec, Prysmian Group, CommScope and Corning Optical Communications.
Joe Graham of US Conec called the area a “hot bed of technology,” with the Catawba Science Center providing “a basic fundamental learning.”
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Alan Barnhardt, executive director of the Catawba Science Center, said the community is to blame for a successful learning place.
“We have an opportunity to connect kids and adults to the community here,” he said.
Barnhardt said he hoped to inspire the community to love science and use it in the local workforce.
Barnhardt said the exhibit, which encourages visual and hands-on activities, was a direct result of the community’s commitment to science.
“For a city of our size to have a science center of this caliber speaks to the community,” he said.
In the exhibit, visitors can see how a drop of water will change as it falls and can use shadow techniques to enlarge or shrink objects. A glow wall allows patrons to use LED flashlights to write or draw on a wall before the image disappears.
“We’re showing that light is used in art, in photography. Light is what is providing what you see,” Hawn said. “Light works in everything.”
