Editing 1351: Metamaterials

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==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
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{{w|Metamaterials}}, artificially-created structures typically made from several materials in a microscopic checkerboard pattern, are famous for allowing bizarre optical properties, such as {{w|Metamaterial cloaking|invisibility cloaks}}. This comic imagines that metamaterials can change the color of light passing through them.
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{{incomplete|Feels incomplete.}}
  
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In the real world a metamaterial can alter the spatial distribution of light and also its frequency, like done in {{w|fluorescent lamp}}s — but this would not resemble the entire picture in a different color. In photography many {{w|Photographic filter#Color conversion|filters}} are used to enhance the quality and appearance of the image. These filters do not alter colors but block some of them, so the result is shown in a different color than the original. Nevertheless, no application like this is able to switch a single color to another as it can be done by most modern computer photo programs.
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{{w|Metamaterials}}, artificially created materials typically composed of very finely structured “conventional” materials, may cause light passing through them to shift.  The exact color it shifts to varies based on the design of the material. (At least that seems to be the underlying assumption of the comic. Real metamaterials, however, are spectrally linear systems. They have a spatially modulated sturcture, hence they can do weird stuff with light ''spatially''. Color is a frequency/time thing though. For red to turn into blue, you still need a nonlinear medium and a lot of red. Or maybe a temporally modulated medium with a modulation similiar to the frequency of visible light...?)
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In today’s comic, Megan uses her metamaterial (which is in the shape of a box) to switch the colors of the cliché Valentine’s Day poem, “{{w|Roses are red}}, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you.”
  
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[[Megan]] uses a box made of her metamaterial to switch the colors of the cliché Valentine's Day poem, "{{w|Roses are red|Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you.}}"
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The title text references this with Randall pondering making a metamaterial that reverses the effect of {{w|instagram}} filters, likely by placing the material between the camera and the subject just before the picture is taken.
  
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The title text references this with [[Randall]] pondering making a metamaterial that reverses the effect of {{w|instagram}} filters, likely by placing the material between the camera and the subject just before the picture is taken without the photographer noticing - a so-called {{W|photobombing}}. Instagram is a photo application that applies one of a variety of filters like {{w|Color theory|hue-shift}} or contrast adjustments meant to simulate the look of old photographs. These filters may be able to interchange blue and red - as they are not real material filters.
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==Transcript==
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:[Picture of a red violet.]
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:Megan (off-screen): Violets are red.
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:[Picture of a blue rose.]
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:Megan (off-screen): And roses are blue.
  
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==Transcript==
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:[Megan holding sheet of transparent material in front of the two flowers: red violet, blue rose. Cueball stands nearby.]
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:[An image of a violet that is colored red.]
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:Megan: When metamaterials
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:Megan (off-screen):
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:Violets are red
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:[Megan moves the object away from the flowers. Now violet is blue, and rose is red]
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:[An image of a rose that is colored blue.]
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:Megan: Alter their hue.
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:Megan (off-screen):
 
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:And roses are blue
 
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:[Megan and Cueball are standing around a table, on which a screen is in front of the rose and violet. Megan is in front of a lectern with a mic. All of this is on a stage.]
 
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:Megan:
 
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:When metamaterials
 
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:[Same scene, but Megan moves the screen away from in front of the rose and violet. It is revealed that the flowers' actual colors are those from the original poem, i.e. the violet is blue and the rose is red.]
 
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:Megan:
 
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:Alter their hue.
 
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
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[[Category:Comics with color]]
 
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
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[[Category:Science]]
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[[Category:Comics with color]]
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[[Category:Photography]]
 

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