Submitted via IRC for Bytram
If you don't know how something works, break it. Science is built on creative destruction: Much of what neuroscientists know of the brain, they know from what gets lost during brain injuries. Under happier circumstances, they glimpse the functioning of visual perception from how it breaks down in optical illusions. For instance, the 3-D Escher-like illusions created by Kokichi Sugihara of Meiji University exploit our brain's tendency to see all angles as right angles.
Some of the most dramatic illusions involve apparent motion—these appear to spin, shimmer, or shimmy even though they're completely static, like Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie–Woogie or the psychedelic pinwheels of Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a psychologist at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Two more Japanese mathematicians, Hitoshi Arai at the University of Tokyo and his wife, Shinobu Arai, have created a new class of them, known as fuyuu, or floating, illusions.
The Arais have an extensive online gallery with commentary in Japanese, as well as an abridged English version. In addition to their own creations, they have collected inadvertent illusions from the real world, such as buildings that, viewed from certain angles, appear to switch places because of how their windows and other design elements line up.
Don't believe everything you see
Source: http://nautil.us/blog/how-japanese-floating-illusions-reverse_engineer-what-we-see
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:20PM (3 children)
Link unusable because of ad that won't go away when I click its X.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:38PM
Click on the link to their store and then use the back button to read the article.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:39PM
Use this direct link to the English version of the original artist/mathematician page:
http://araiweb.matrix.jp/Exhibition/VisualIllusions.html [matrix.jp]
This link is just as good as the magazine article, better if you count many more pictures.
I got that popup advert to go away by re-loading the page...and then clicking the red X (in Firefox) to stop loading the page before the ad loaded.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday June 22 2017, @05:40PM
The page opens fine for me with no ads. I tried a search for an alternate link but had no luck — sorry!
What browser/OS are you using? My browser is Pale Moon (Version: 27.3.0) on Win 7Pro 64-bit. Further, I have Javascript disabled and have both Adblock Latitude and uBlock Origin installed.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @06:26PM
I was about to complain about the spelling of his name, until I wiki'd him just to be sure
Apparently it worked for him, except in Holland where we still refer to him as Mondriaan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @07:18PM (4 children)
It's biological hacking. These "illusions" belong to a class of optical images known to permanently cause neurological damage to those that view them for a protracted period of time. You have been warned!
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday June 22 2017, @11:07PM (2 children)
So when people have been looking at illusions for too long, their constant rocking backward and forward motion which looks like they're praying, really is neurological damage?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @11:34PM
Or they are sitting in a rocking chair. Or they are drug addicts. Or they are constantly in an environment that doesn't provide enough stimulation. Or they are autistic. So many reasons for rocking back and forth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @01:51AM
Unlikely. The damage that occurs from staring at some of these images occurs in the visual processing areas of the brain. After exposure, the symptoms include "burn in" of colors and/or images or the inability to see certain colors and/or shapes clearly. Symptoms persist for a period of time. In some cases damage is permanent. The eyes do not appear damaged and doctors are at a loss to explain it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @03:43AM
[citation needed]
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday June 23 2017, @12:09AM (2 children)
Just out of town, there is a field with an irrigation ditch running through. From the highway, it looks as though the water is flowing uphill, even in video.
I know it is an illusion, but, unfortunately, the property is posted, and so far, I haven't found anyone who can give me permission to enter and investigate.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @12:32AM (1 child)
I obviously don't know the ditch you are talking about, but I saw the same thing myself several years ago... there was a stream by a road which the water was flowing uphill.
It took me several minutes of looking and walking back and forth before I figured out the trick. The stream was flowing downhill (maybe at a 1 degree gradient), but the road was at a steeper incline (maybe a 3 degree gradient). The difference in gradient made it look like the water was going uphill, due to the "ground" falling away faster than the water. I expect your illusion is a similar trick.
I only mention this in case it satisfies your curiosity in the event that you are never able to investigate it yourself in person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @07:24AM
Maybe I'm being stupid, but I think a degree of variation can even be made up for by grass and weeds.