For centuries, optical illusions have used our visual shortcuts and brain inklings against us, turning everyday objects into false 3D images, strange floating ships, and seriously confusing arguments. Let's take a look—and then take another—at some classic and contemporary illusions.
This confounding rabbit (or is it a raven?) divided the Popular Mechanics staff. It's a new spin on a classic illusion, where one drawing could be a rabbit or a duck, depending on how you look at it.
2Please Circle Your Squares
Anthony Norcia/Reddit/My_Memes_Will_Cure_U
Many viewers look at this illusion and see elaborately decorated rectangles, like picture frame decorations or panels on a coffer. But if you look again, the effect is made by floating circles that are perpendicular to the striped background.
3The Spins
The 2019 Optical Illusion of the Year is a looping shape that appears to spin horizontally or vertically depending on how you look at it. This one is, well, a real head-spinner.
4Just One Shade of Gray
Sinha et al., Vision Research, 2020
Last year, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published new experiments exploring an old illusion. These two stones are the same color—so why do we see them differently?
5Even Our Ancestors Weren't Sure
Duncan Caldwell
This prehistoric stone carving depicts what experts believe is the earliest known "duck rabbit"-style dual illusion. With a keen eye, you can see both a buffalo and a mammoth.
6Superluminal Optical Illusion
University of Surrey
This illusion happens when a bicycle travels at the speed of light while a pair of human eyes looks on. And surprisingly, trying to understand it is an important physics problem.
7A Tale of a Fata-ful Trip
Monika Schaffner
A fata morgana is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon where layers of cold and hot air distort what we see at the horizon. In this case, it's caused a phantom boat to float in midair.
8The Disappearing Act
Nightbreeze13/Reddit
Sometimes, like a movie T. rex, we can only see things that continue to move. In this illusion, the pastel colors slowly fade away until they disappear. Try it!
9Twisted Metal
Gianni Sarcone's animated version of the classic Müller-Lyon illusion features line segments that are always the same size as parts move around them. Keep watching—it never gets any less weird to think about.
10The Wonderland Foyer
Twitter/DuncanCook10
This waving tile floor is the result of careful tile-cutting, creating an illusion of forced perspective. For people in older apartment buildings, this could just look like a bad maintenance day.
Caroline DelbertCaroline Delbert is a writer, book editor, researcher, and avid reader.
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