[OT] Pendulum

Darius Clarke darius
Fri Apr 18 14:55:02 PDT 2003


Here is a great optical illusion one can easily perform with a pendulum.




Watch the (real world) pendulum swinging while sitting perpendicular to its 
motion (as you would normally watch a pendulum) while you and the pendulum are 
in a brightly lit room. 




Cover one eye with a dark sunglass lens. The pendulum will appear to swing in an 
oval. Cover the other eye with the sunglass lens. The pendulum will appear to 
swing in an oval in the opposite direction.




The illusion appears to indicate that our vision system uses a timing delta of a 
moving object as seen from one eye and another to help it as part of several 
visual clues to determine 3D distance from the viewer. Couple this with the fact 
that our vision system processes information faster under bright lighting and 
slower under dim lighting. The eye with the sunglass lens reports the motion 
delayed and so the brain calculates a different distance as the pendulum moves 
at different speeds.




Cheers,


Darius



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