Optical Illusions and Other Mind-Bending Fun

I'm a fan of things that trick my brain. The following are some of my favorites. If you're looking for a real-world experience, I recommend the House of Houdini attraction at Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ — after all of the roller coasters and other rides I went on, the one thing I was still thinking about days later were the mind tricks.

Jumbled Letters Still Readable
This sort of thing has been circulating for a while, but this is a great example of how we can read words even when the order of the letters is mixed up.

Jumbled Letters Still Readable
This sort of thing has been circulating for a while, but this is a great example of how we can read words even when the order of the letters is mixed up.

426,000 Discarded Cellphones
Statistics are often hard to wrap our heads around particularly when the numbers involved are big. Chris Jordan has an ongoing project to help visualize the meaning behind some of these numbers. Here's what the number of cell phones being disposed of daily in the US look like. Check out the other pictures of Chris' work.

My Favorite Optical Illusion
Optical illusions are all over the web, but most are boring. One of my favorite animated optical illusions is below. Here's what you do:

Watch the purple dots on the outside. Nothing odd there, right?
Look in the center and peripherally look at the rotating purple dot. It's green!
Now stare hard at the center and eventually the dots will disappear.

Wall of Water
A simple turn of an image turns into something unexpected.

Wall of Water
A simple turn of an image turns into something unexpected.

Metaphor for Complexity
If you follow the balls you can see that everything fits together nicely. Even more impressive, you can take this image and tile it and all of edges will connect seamlessly.

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Optical Illusions and Other Mind-Bending Fun

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