July 31, 2006

That's not what you're really seeing, sir

Ah, optical illusions. They're loads of fun.

Let's start with a digital one. It's an animated gif that plays with the persistance of vision creating a green dot where no green dot really is. The instructions are pretty simple - stare at the black crosshairs for a few seconds and see a green dot appear where the pink dots are disappearing. I think you'll have to click on the picture below, because - for some reason - blogger doesn't seem to like animated gif's.


That's a pretty standard one, similar in form to the ones where you stare at an image for a while and then stare at a blank white space and see the negative image. Here's other examples called Queen Elizabeth II or bird in a cage.
I thought about posting links to my favorite optical illusions, but there are just so many that I enjoy. Instead, I'll drop links to a few sites that have bunches and bunches of great optical illusions:The last illusion I want to mention is this one which still mystifies me. If anybody can explain it to me - the sixth one in the flash presentation - please leave a comment.
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5 comments:

  1. Cantido7/31/06, 12:27 PM

    Was the picture supposed to be under the optical illusion? They did it too early. I had just maxed the volume beforehand to listen to a Podcast, so it got me all the same. The fith one is more interesting, however.

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  2. PHSChemGuy8/1/06, 2:46 PM

    I half expected to have the gag played on me, but I jumped anyway.

    Which picture are you asking about?

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  3. Cantido8/1/06, 2:54 PM

    The picture of the animal, was it supposed to look like it was spinning, or whatever the effects are of staring at the swirls?

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  4. PHSChemGuy8/1/06, 4:02 PM

    Oh, I think the animal is just meant to scare the crap out of you. I don't think it's any sort of true optical illusion at all.

    I just pointed it out to make sure everybody watched the flash video long enough.

    Verification: ltwham

    He who served immediately under Cpt. Bam

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  5. calencoriel8/1/06, 8:34 PM

    Cantido...did you by any chance look at the optical illusions without the volume turned on?

    I'm thinking without volume, that rabbit/vampire thing at the end might not have been as scary...

    just a thought

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