New Watch Day #3 — Erebus Ascent Automatic MOP · Watch Lover

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13h (edited) • WOTD ⌚

New Watch Day #3 — Erebus Ascent Automatic MOP

Happy Saturday! Happy New Watch Day Number 3!

Wearing my gorgeous new Erebus Ascent 39mm Automatic with the beautiful Blue MOP Dial again today, and loving every minute. I have made no secret about my being more of a strap guy than a bracelet guy, but this one has me reconsidering that. This bracelet is comfortable and beautiful all day long. Loving everything about this amazing and gorgeous Erebus watch!

Being inquisitive as I am, I wanted to know why and how the colors change on a Mother of Pearl piece, specifically this new watch dial. So I asked ChatGPT to explain it. If curious, here you go . . . .

"The shifting colors in Mother of Pearl are caused by a phenomenon called iridescence — specifically from the way light interacts with the microscopic layered structure inside the material.

Mother of Pearl (also called nacre) is made of countless ultra-thin layers deposited by mollusks like oysters and abalones. Those layers are incredibly small — often thinner than a human hair by many thousands of times.

"Here is the fascinating part:

As light enters the surface, some of it reflects off the upper layers while other portions travel slightly deeper and reflect back from lower layers. Those light waves then interact with one another.

Depending on:

the angle of the light,
the angle you are viewing from,
and the thickness of the microscopic layers,

certain wavelengths (colors) are strengthened while others cancel out.

"That shifting reinforcement and cancellation is called thin-film interference — the same general optical principle that causes rainbow colors in:

soap bubbles,
oil slicks on water,
butterfly wings,
and peacock feathers.

"In Mother of Pearl watch dials, the effect becomes especially dramatic because:

the surface is polished smooth,
the layers are very regular,
and watch lighting tends to be directional and reflective.

"So when you tilt the watch:

one angle may favor shorter blue wavelengths,
another may emphasize reds and pinks,
another greens or purples.

"The colors are not “painted in” the material. They are actually being created by the physics of light itself at that moment.

And importantly:

different mollusks produce different nacre structures, which is why some dials lean:

icy blue,
warm pink,
green-gold,
silver-white,
or even nearly black like Tahitian shell.

"Some especially high-end watch dials are prized precisely because they have unusually strong or dramatic interference patterns.

"As the angle changes, the wavelengths being reinforced change too — and your eye sees different colors.

"It is one of those wonderful places where physics accidentally becomes art. A seashell accidentally inventing optical engineering long before humans ever built a laboratory."

And now we know. Best wishes for a wonderful Saturday and Weekend! 😀

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