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Thread: "Curve ball" selected as "best" optical illusion

  1. #1
    Master OptiBoarder rinselberg's Avatar
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    "Curve ball" selected as "best" optical illusion

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The three best visual illusions in the world were chosen at a gathering last weekend of neuroscientists and psychologists at the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Florida.

    The winning entry, from a Bucknell University professor, may help explain why curve balls in baseball are so tricky to hit.

    A properly thrown curve ball spins in a way that makes the air on one side move faster than on the other. This causes the ball to move along a gradual curve. From the point of view of a batter standing on home plate, though, curve balls seem to "break," or move suddenly in a new direction.

    This year's winning illusion, created by Arthur Shapiro of Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, may explain this phenomena. His animation shows a spinning ball that, when watched directly, moves in a straight line. When seen out of the corner of the eye, however, the spin of the ball fools the brain into thinking that the ball is curving.

    So as a baseball flies towards home plate, the moment when it passes from central to peripheral vision could exaggerate the movement of the ball, causing its gradual curve to be seen as a sudden jerk.
    For more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520103,00.html

    To see the "curve ball" illusion:
    http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2009...lillusion.html

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    Master OptiBoarder
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    Very cool!

  3. #3
    Optician Extraordinaire
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    Thanks for sharing. These were great. :)

  4. #4
    OptiWizard
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    curve ball

    I remember having a junk curve ball not break in to the strike zone as intended but hard and fast downward into my back foot as I flailed away at it. The ball seemed to stop and drop just as I thought it was hanging in mid air. I was twisted like a cartoon...life imitating art.
    Jim Schafer
    Retired From PPG Industries/
    Transitions Optical, Inc.

    When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say even less.
    Paul Brown

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    Master OptiBoarder Shwing's Avatar
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    Oh baby!! Nicely done.
    Shwing

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    Master OptiBoarder rbaker's Avatar
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    Like Darwinism the "does a curve ball really curve?" question seems to come up every twenty or so years. I have witnessed two iterations of the phenomenon over the years. MIT utilizing Doc Edgerton's strobe light and high speed cameras proved that a curve ball does indeed curve. Both these photos and fluid dynamics offer sufficient proof. The information and the "curve ball illusion" cited above illustrates another phenomenon which is indeed an optical illusion.

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    Master OptiBoarder pseudonym's Avatar
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    This one must not have been entered:

    http://www.maniacworld.com/Spinning-...-Illusion.html

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