Fun stuff to do

Optical Illusions

Illustrations by Newhouse Design
From the March 2005 Boys' Life magazine

Your eyes can play tricks on you. Pictures that confuse your eyes and brain, tricking them into seeing something differently, are called optical illusions. See if you can figure out these optical illusions.

WHICH OBJECT IS TALLER? (None: They’re all the same size.)

WHICH LINE IS LONGER? (Neither: They’re both the same.)

IS THIS GRAY HAZE SHRINKING?
(Stare at the black dot. After a while the gray haze will appear to shrink.)

DO THESE COLORED LINES BEND?
(No, they’re perfectly straight—but try telling your eyes that!)

ARE THESE WHEELS SPINNING?
(Stare at the center. Now move your head back and forth toward and away from the page. The circles will appear to spin.)

HOW MANY BLACK DOTS CAN YOU COUNT? (Look closely and you will see them.)

DO YOU SEE TWO FACES OR A VASE?
(If you see one, close your eyes for a moment, then look for the other.)

ARE THESE LINES STRAIGHT OR CROOKED?
(Yep, you guessed it. The horizontal lines look crooked, but they are perfectly straight.)

ARE YOU SEEING RED, WHITE & BLUE? (Stare at the center of this flag for one minute. Then look at an empty white sheet and you’ll see a red, white and blue flag.)

HOW THIS FLAG WORKS
Your eyes see color as measures of red or green, blue or yellow and bright or dark. When you look at a green object for a long time, your eyes get tired and start seeing red. When you look at yellow, after a while you’ll start to see blue. And darkness turns into brightness. The result: Even this wacky flag can be good, old red, white and blue—after a while!

Read 367 comments about “Optical Illusions”

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1. 307 - AMY15 says:
   September 8th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

   Those are really ausome optical illusions

2. 306 - skeeter says:
   September 6th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

   this stuff is awesome

3. 305 - Awsom says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

   cooooool

4. 304 - Drummer says:
   August 30th, 2008 at 9:58 am

   cool

5. 303 - david says:
   August 26th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

   that was awesome

6. 302 - willman says:
   August 25th, 2008 at 1:53 pm

   ive seen those before

7. 301 - Anubis says:
   August 25th, 2008 at 10:36 am

   i love them all. this site (and the magazine) has gotten way better over the years… who agrees?

8. 300 - opticalillusioned says:
   August 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

   that is so weird! especially the flag one

9. 299 - hatmanr says:
   August 22nd, 2008 at 11:03 pm

   cool i love it

10. 298 - runescape fan says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

    they are coool!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment page:   « 37 … 36 35 34 33 32 [31] 30 29 28 27 26 … 1 »

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