Wire Diffraction Gratings

In the summer of 1972, I attended the workshop on recreating classic experiments in physics at Barnard College. This was developed by Samuel Devons, and it was a defining experience that set me toward a research career involving early physics teaching apparatus. During the course of the workshop, I became curious about the original diffraction gratings developed by Fraunhofer and built a wire diffraction. A short note about the gratings was published in the American Journal of Physics the next year.²