Optical Illusions

Things are not always what they seem...

The pictures on the top of this page display two trucks with unusual designs. The photo on the left appears to be of a truck with boxes hanging from the ceiling. In the photo on the right, it appears as if a beer bottle, lager than the truck itself is lying on the bed of the truck horizontally, hanging off of the sides. Of course, these photos were taken using trick photography and if viewed from any other angles, your perspective of these illusions would be very different.

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This picture shows an optical illusion in which the eye cannot distinguish the fact that squares A and B are the same exact color. Because of the checkerboard pattern and common sense, your brain assumes that square A should be darker than square B.

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Are these lines straight? Believe it or not, they actually are. They look crooked because the black boxes do not line up, causing the false impression of disorder. If you look very closely and try not to concentrate on the black boxes, you will be able to see that the lines are in fact straight.

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These images are not actually moving. The image on the left appears to be moving because the pattern moves from small to large. When you look at the image, it seems like the blue designs are moving closer. On the right, the circles appear to be rotating. As in the image on the left, this illusion is caused by the altering sizes in the design.

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This piece of art displays a woman walking along a cobblestone road. However, depending how you look at the picture, it can also show a portrait of a woman's face. It can be interpreted in different ways, depending on what part of the image you focus on first.

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Do you see the men wearing sombreros and playing the guitar, or do you see the elderly couple? Like the image above, depending on what you focus on first, you might see two completely different images. The reason that these kinds of optical illusions are so successful is because your brain takes in the big picture and then combines the two different images into something that makes sense.

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How many eagles do you see? There are actually seven. If you look closely at the clouds, the rocks and the river, the eagles are incorporated into the landscape. They are very difficult to overlook.

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Are the workers climbing up or down? This image defies the laws of science because the top and bottom of the image do not match. It is simply impossible for all of the people to be no top. Be sure to enlarge this image to get a better view.

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Don't worry, he's not going to fall very far. The floor is about 6 inches under his feet. The style in which the floor is painted combined with the fact that the man is holding himself up above the ground make it appear that the elevator does not have a floor. This is not the case.

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There are actually no sports cars in this picture. As you can probably tell, the van has a sports car painted on the side of it. The most convincing aspect of this photo is that the wheels of the actual van correspond with the position of the wheels on the sports car.

These pictures show the importance of point of view. From one angle, it appears as if the chalk art is a three dimensional image of a globe with the artist standing on top of it. When looking from a side view, it becomes apparent that the actual image is elongated to give the false sense of 3D seen in the first image.

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Amazing 3D chalk art!

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Now look at different angle...

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Sources:
http://www.coolopticalillusions.com/sidewalk-chalk-art.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcw1IIGSGMM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTzKL6gKt1Q
http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/optical_illusions_2.png
http://www.coolopticalillusions.com/crazy/images/crazy_optical_illusions_old.jpg
http://www.innocentenglish.com/funny-amazing-pictures-videos/optical-illusions-3d/amazing-optical-illusions.html
http://www.optical-illusions.in/illusions/moving_or_static_optical_illusion.jpg
http://image.photosunion.com/29432396/Art/Optical-Illusion-130.gif
http://www.chessbase.com/puzzle/puzz10b.htm http://home.comcast.net/~markjoel/impossible_terrace.htm
See all sources on our bibliography.