What is the shape of light?

A few weeks ago Maddie's class was talking about flashlights in school and Maddie asked what the shape of the light would be if you changed the shape of the reflector plate behind the light bulb. Her teacher told her that would be an excellent question to explore in her science project so we went and bought some flashlight and took them apart. We tried to make reflector plates but it turns out it was a lot harder than we thought it would be. Then my brother John stopped by for a random visit one weekend and he got drafted into the project too. He helped Maddie build a flashlight in a box with a screen to project the light onto that worked so much better! Thanks John! Anyway, then we were able to make several different shaped reflector plates that worked! Guess what? The light does reflect the shape of the reflector plate! Anyway, Maddie had a lot of fun with her project and even won first prize for her grade at the school science fair. Good job Maddie (and Uncle John)!