Metamaterials
Metamaterials
[An image of a violet that is colored red.] Megan (off-screen): Violets are red [An image of a rose that is colored blue.] Megan (off-screen): And roses are blue [Megan and Cueball are standing around a table, on which a screen is in front of the rose and violet. Megan is in front of a lectern with a mic. All of this is on a stage.] Megan: When metamaterials [Same scene, but Megan moves the screen away from in front of the rose and violet. It is revealed that the flowers' actual colors are those from the original poem, i.e. the violet is blue and the rose is red.] Megan: Alter their hue.

Metamaterials , artificially-created structures typically made from several materials in a microscopic checkerboard pattern, are famous for allowing bizarre optical properties, such as invisibility cloaks . This comic imagines that metamaterials can change the color of light passing through them.
In the real world a metamaterial can alter the spatial distribution of light and also its frequency, like done in fluorescent lamps — but this would not resemble the entire picture in a different color. In photography many filters are used to enhance the quality and appearance of the image. These filters do not alter colors but block some of them, so the result is shown in a different color than the original. Nevertheless, no application like this is able to switch a single color to another as it can be done by most modern computer photo programs.
Megan uses a box made of her metamaterial to switch the colors of the cliché Valentine's Day poem, " Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you. "
The title text references this with Randall pondering making a metamaterial that reverses the effect of instagram filters, likely by placing the material between the camera and the subject just before the picture is taken without the photographer noticing - a so-called photobombing . Instagram is a photo application that applies one of a variety of filters like hue-shift or contrast adjustments meant to simulate the look of old photographs. These filters may be able to interchange blue and red - as they are not real material filters.
[An image of a violet that is colored red.] Megan (off-screen): Violets are red [An image of a rose that is colored blue.] Megan (off-screen): And roses are blue [Megan and Cueball are standing around a table, on which a screen is in front of the rose and violet. Megan is in front of a lectern with a mic. All of this is on a stage.] Megan: When metamaterials [Same scene, but Megan moves the screen away from in front of the rose and violet. It is revealed that the flowers' actual colors are those from the original poem, i.e. the violet is blue and the rose is red.] Megan: Alter their hue.
