The Illusion Machine That Teaches Us How We See - Issue 32: Space
▻http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/the-illusion-machine-that-teaches-us-how-we-see-rp
The man sprang onstage dressed as a miner, complete with headlamp and pickaxe. After swinging the axe a few times, he proclaimed to the audience that he had discovered a “supermagnet”—a substance so strong it could attract even wood. A video screen above him appeared to prove him right: It showed wooden balls rolling up four ramps, seemingly unbound by gravity. Amazeballs In this prize-winning illusion by Sugihara, wooden balls appear to roll up four ramps. Kokichi Sugihara The man was not in fact a miner, but a mathematician—Kokichi Sugihara, of Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan. He was competing in the 2010 finals of the annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest in Naples, Florida. And, as the video went on to show, the balls were not really rolling uphill. A look at the back of (...)