The Fissured Tongue Series
Matter Waves
Jessica Reed
Jessica Reed
Here a series of grays and points bright and point-like in their meaning. Matter waves and absence creates rays and a square in it. The square is not seen only a crystal and an instruction. Others imagine this successfully. This from a scattering.
Are these lights bright do they mean. Do these instruct. This one an artifact. Others interpret a square pattern in a weak stream of electrons aimed. They do this successfully. Electrons aim at a structure and bouncing creates an interference. This diffraction occurs.
On this occasion electrons and a scope. If aluminum pleases. If an opportunity presents itself it presents itself now.
A single plane acts as a mirror. A family interferes. If they do they do so necessarily. Everything that occurs is successful in the lab. This time a square expands and contracts in a narrow range. Do not confuse the picture of what happens. Notice what happens. Rays from separate planes reinforce and this is constructive.
Look. A manifestation of what is reasoned and what is seen if what is reasoned and what is seen match.
Look. Not the shape of a square but a central dot and a bright one. Lines surround this bright one gleaming if successful. If these lines are angled as all lines are in relation to others. Lines are important sometimes if they shine just so. Important lines appear as angles in a successful gleaming.
Are these lights bright do they mean. Do these instruct. This one an artifact. Others interpret a square pattern in a weak stream of electrons aimed. They do this successfully. Electrons aim at a structure and bouncing creates an interference. This diffraction occurs.
On this occasion electrons and a scope. If aluminum pleases. If an opportunity presents itself it presents itself now.
A single plane acts as a mirror. A family interferes. If they do they do so necessarily. Everything that occurs is successful in the lab. This time a square expands and contracts in a narrow range. Do not confuse the picture of what happens. Notice what happens. Rays from separate planes reinforce and this is constructive.
Look. A manifestation of what is reasoned and what is seen if what is reasoned and what is seen match.
Look. Not the shape of a square but a central dot and a bright one. Lines surround this bright one gleaming if successful. If these lines are angled as all lines are in relation to others. Lines are important sometimes if they shine just so. Important lines appear as angles in a successful gleaming.
Still of a square pattern of light diffracted off of a crystal captured from the film "Matter Waves" by Alan Holden (with Lester Germer), 1961
Read the image. Made as an artifact in these circumstances. Evidence if it shines just so.
What you mean to see is there if you mean to.
What you mean to see is there if you mean to.
About the Author
Jessica Reed has two chapbooks: Still Recognizable Forms (Laurel Review Greentower Press) and World, Composed (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in The Journal, Quarterly West, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Bellingham Review, New American Writing, Chicago Review online, Waxwing, DIAGRAM, [Pank], Scientific American, Exposition Review, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. She has degrees in poetry and physics, and she teaches a seminar on physics and the arts. https://www.jessicareed.info/@jreedscipoet
About the Work
"Suppose this had been my lab notes instead. For context, when a weak stream of electrons bounces off a crystal, the “square pattern” we see is evidence for de Broglie’s discovery that, like light, matter behaves in particle-like and wavelike ways. But the image does not look to the uninitiated like it means this; physics has a vocabulary of images—a whole history and chain of inferences are behind “seeing” this. In physics lab that day, now two decades ago, I had hoped for a revelation—that the instant the image appeared, I would no longer be a naïve viewer. But there was no sudden understanding, and whatever I have learned about reasoned images has come to me in linear fashion from philosophy of science, and elliptically through the rhythms and gestures of Gertrude Stein. Borrowing Stein’s syntax and form of signaling allows me to turn ideas over repeatedly, even to arrive without being bound by a chain of linked traditional declaratives."
About the Author's Process
"In 2022, I’m revisiting Borges, Paul Celan, and Emily Dickinson, and I’m excited about Daniel Biegelson’s Of Being Neighbors and Madhur Anand’s Parasitic Oscillations. I’ve also been remembering a motorcycle tour of Rome with Tom Andrews, a remarkable poet who died far too young and is the reason I became a writer."
Jessica Reed has two chapbooks: Still Recognizable Forms (Laurel Review Greentower Press) and World, Composed (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in The Journal, Quarterly West, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Bellingham Review, New American Writing, Chicago Review online, Waxwing, DIAGRAM, [Pank], Scientific American, Exposition Review, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. She has degrees in poetry and physics, and she teaches a seminar on physics and the arts. https://www.jessicareed.info/@jreedscipoet
About the Work
"Suppose this had been my lab notes instead. For context, when a weak stream of electrons bounces off a crystal, the “square pattern” we see is evidence for de Broglie’s discovery that, like light, matter behaves in particle-like and wavelike ways. But the image does not look to the uninitiated like it means this; physics has a vocabulary of images—a whole history and chain of inferences are behind “seeing” this. In physics lab that day, now two decades ago, I had hoped for a revelation—that the instant the image appeared, I would no longer be a naïve viewer. But there was no sudden understanding, and whatever I have learned about reasoned images has come to me in linear fashion from philosophy of science, and elliptically through the rhythms and gestures of Gertrude Stein. Borrowing Stein’s syntax and form of signaling allows me to turn ideas over repeatedly, even to arrive without being bound by a chain of linked traditional declaratives."
About the Author's Process
"In 2022, I’m revisiting Borges, Paul Celan, and Emily Dickinson, and I’m excited about Daniel Biegelson’s Of Being Neighbors and Madhur Anand’s Parasitic Oscillations. I’ve also been remembering a motorcycle tour of Rome with Tom Andrews, a remarkable poet who died far too young and is the reason I became a writer."
