Something Kinda Cool

Michael Paul Cote | December 13, 2005
Check out this neat optical illusion.
(link)

Denise Sawicki | December 13, 2005
Pretty neat, I like that kind of stuff. I couldn't get the pink dots to totally disappear though. But it's kind of like how, if you are really bored in school, you can just stare at the flag or some other colorful item for a long time and then look at a white wall and you will see an opposite-color after-image of whatever you were looking at... Was I the only one that bored?

Lori Lancaster | December 13, 2005
[hidden by request]

Amy Austin | December 14, 2005
That is cool. I find it really interesting that the same colors we label as "complementary" in art/color theory are the same pairs that are bundled together in our cones/color receptors... I really wonder if this is coincidence or not, since color theory is pretty old (but so is "op" art)... and I'm just not sure how long we've really understood the amazing anatomy of the eyeball -- in fact, I think that there's still much more *not* understood about it!

Heh... I remember seeing Gummi Bears on the ceiling in some of my classes...

Scott Hardie | December 20, 2005
Neat trick. I could get either eye to lose the dots, but not both eyes at once. Stupid lazy eye.

Amy Austin | December 20, 2005
That's a result of "lazy eye"??? I just had to be real still (my eyeballs), or they would come back. I am left eye dominant -- I don't know if this has any real consequence or not. But I can tell you that it's a real pain in the ass when shooting a camera or a gun! (This is why I shoot lefty instead.)

Scott Hardie | December 20, 2005
Whatever it's called. Ironically I'm too lazy to look it up. But I can rarely see optical illusions (including 3-D movies) correctly. This one worked somewhat because the principle was different, but I could still sort of see through it.

Amy Austin | December 20, 2005
Hmm... I'm not any kind of authority on optical effects, but I do know how you can find out which eye is dominant, if you don't already know: with arms extended and using your flattened hands overlapped to form a small diamond/window, look through them at a wall or other surface beyond and focus on a point there; then, remaining focused on this point, slowly bring your lapped hands to the bridge of your nose -- and the end result will be that what you think is the center of your face is actually one eye or the other... this is your dominant eye. Pretty cool, I think -- although, if you've ever been to the optometrist's office, then you may already know this "trick".