Optical Illusions: An Eye-Popping Extravaganza of Visual Tricks
By Gianni A. Sarcone and Marie-Jo Waeber
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About this ebook
An image on a page appears to vibrate, a face gradually disappears, and a puzzling cat makes an appearance in this feast of fascinating optical tricks. Children and adults can discover the fascinating intersection of art, science, and magic in a series of geometric illusions, delusions, distortion effects, and other impossible images.
Designed and drawn by a famous puzzle maker, the book is intended to perplex readers, to excite their sense of wonder, and to encourage them to question the nature of reality. The optical illusions, which combine visual interest with elements of psychology and recreational logic, include many original illusions as well as new adaptations of lesser-known visual tricks. Each of the images is accompanied by a simple commentary that explains how it works.
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Optical Illusions - Gianni A. Sarcone
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
An Eye-Popping Extravaganza of Visual Tricks
Gianni A. Sarcone and
Marie-Jo Waeber
Dover Publications, Inc.
Mineola, New York
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Gianni A. Sarcone and Marie-Jo Waeber
All rights reserved.
Bibliographical Note
Optical Illusions: An Eye-Popping Extravaganza of Visual Tricks is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2014.
International Standard Book Number
eISBN-13: 978-0-486-78295-9
Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
49354701 2014
www.doverpublications.com
CONTENTS
Introduction
Shapes, Distances and Sizes
Color and Subjective Motion
Ambiguous and Impossible Figures
Tests and Experiments
Answers
INTRODUCTION
"Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one."
-- Albert Einstein
Dear Reader,
Everything you see
depends strongly on the context and attention you give to it. The mind and the world you experience are inseparable, as it is your 3-pound brain that make the world meaningful. Seeing isn’t some kind of direct perception of reality. Actually, our bairns are constantly interpreting, correcting, and giving structure to the visual input form our eyes¹. If this were not the case, you would not see any colors (consider that all the beautiful colors you see don’t really exist), and you would probably see the world upside-down! Moreover, you would notice in your visual field a very large dot, called the blind spot,
where the optical nerve enters the eye.
A Zen master said once: If you pour water into a cup, water becomes the cup; if you fill a bottle with water, it becomes the bottle!
Likewise, the context shapes the appearance of the world surrounding you. Your brains work by comparing information and stimuli: contrasting colors, shapes, depth in a dynamic changing environment … that’s why perception is relative and not absolute.
Detecting something is not necessarily simple: your senses may perceive a stimulus, but that doesn’t mean that you are paying attention to it! There are a lot of things you miss or ignore in your everyday life, because your brain focuses only on what seems important in that particular moment of your life. Removing or neglecting information is often more useful, because it allows you to take action in a more accurate and rapid manner, and to enjoy life’s benefits.
Though you can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1% of the acoustic spectrum, under