cosmiccow wrote:By this description, any shirt with a visible image would be on topic, because light and optics is a part of, well, seeing things. In fact, I guess you wouldn't even need an image, you could just say, "You can see the shirt, right? It's about optics, and light diffusion."
It's a beautiful image, but nothing about this shirt makes me look at it and think, "Physics!" Is physics involved? Sure. It's involved in everything. That doesn't make the shirt about physics, or overtly connected to physics in any way.
I understand what you are saying, and thanks for the compliment, but my design is not merely visible, its content is light. The theme is light. In fact, it is entirely composed of rays and beams of light, made distinguishable by the particular phenomenon I was interested in, “crepuscular rays,” which usually occur at sunset brought on by shadows from clouds. The opening to the cave functions as the shadow-producing element in this case.
It’s true that I set out to make a design that was not “about” physics. I did not want a reference to the field itself, physicists, or other aspects that would create a self-referential meaning. I wanted something that would demonstrate physics in the natural world, something that physicists would study, but that wouldn’t be a model, a symbol, or something only found in a lab. Only a comparative few shirts in the derby are “about” physics (like the Phive Physibots, Cold Fusion, Retro Physics, e.g.), the rest feature something physical that physicists would study. Mine is no different. Thanks again for your feedback.
