The Engineering Gene II

Professor Patrick Henry Winston ’65, SM ’67, PhD ’70

“What's that?” I said to my about-to-get-his-PhD graduate student, Mark Finlayson. “It's a mirror,” he said, incredulously.

“What does it do?” I said. He looked at me like I had announced I was the King of Hearts.

Patiently, he explained that with all the cubicles between his office, 258, and my office, 251, he would have to walk about 80% of the way over to my office to see if I were in. The mirror, carefully sited with the aid of a laser pointer, provides a view from his desk, via a window above his door, over the cubicles, to my door. Whenever he has an urge to see me, he can see if my lights are on and if my door is open.

“Saves about a minute,” he said, “Enough time to write a line or two of code. Much faster than calling your phone, which you wouldn't answer anyway.”

Elegant solution. No moving parts. No electronics.