Irises — by Pavithra K. MehtaSome words are ill-chosen, like pulchritude, which means beauty but sounds more like a type of stomachache, or an unpleasant taste in one’s mouth. Other words are perfectly chosen, fitting their meaning like a snail fits her shell, like extravaganza, discombobulation, and iridescence.
Iridescence is born when light encounters certain physical structures whose features cause its waves to stumble into one another. The way encountering certain kinds of beauty can cause us to fumble for words, forget how to properly use our feet, and fling ourselves headlong into sidewalk shrubbery. Science calls this phenomenon interference and it is of two types; destructive and constructive. Destructive interference occurs when the crests and troughs of the stumbling waves cancel each other out, dimming their reflected light. This is akin to the type of interference humans encounter in the form of meddling relatives and heavy-handed upper management. In constructive interference, the crests and the troughs of the stumbling waves line up together perfectly. Light waves superimposed in this way reinforce and vivify one another, heightening the vibrancy of their reflected color. That which was moderately red, for instance escalates into the very reddest of reds, the epitome of redness. The way soulmates meeting suffuse into the very them-est versions of themselves. Because these two types of interference happen simultaneously, like a dance floor filled with a random combination of incredibly uncoordinated dancers and phenomenally synchronized ones, as the viewer’s viewing angle shifts, the colors of the iridescent object seem to skitter and slide unpredictably towards muting or muchness depending on the varying degrees of destructive and constructive interference at play.
https://thepoetryof.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/irises/
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