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.

5 comments:

Cantido said...

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.

PHSChemGuy said...

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

Which picture are you asking about?

Cantido said...

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

PHSChemGuy said...

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

calencoriel said...

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