Poppies:Wave at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

The poppies installation at the Tower of London last year caught the public imagination. Part of it has come north. As a physicist, the title "Wave" grabbed me. Looking at it, I read it as a breaking wave that has come down the lake and is about to crash into the bridge. Water waves are not truly transverse. They form from a circular motion in the water. When the wave motion reaches shallow water, the full circle cannot be completed and the wave breaks. The symbolism is quite dramatic: the poppies reach up to my level. I am not immune on the bridge, above the storm. The breaking wave reaches me.