This photo you see on your right, was taken with iPhone. Reportedly, the propeller was spinning at somewhere around 2000 rpm. I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with me that the effect is rather weird, since the image came out so seamless. I need your help determining whether this is a natural phenomenon, or simply a result of the low-cost camera hardware and/or software? There must be some dashingly clever individuals out there, who will comment and tell us exactly why this occurs!
On the personal level, I always believed in God. In my opinion, there must be some incredible force that made all the chaos make sense. It’s just that I don’t care whether it’s name is Jesus, Buddha… or Mother Nature. I believe God is too abstract and complex for our primitive minds to understand. This is why I always thought it’s meaningless to debate over it in depth. Raised in Christian surrounding, still I never felt connected to church as an establishment. In my belief church is too narrow-minded, thus reduces the meaning of God and putts it closer to the ground just by preaching about it. I won’t go into debate what I think of a church as an establishment, but why I’m telling you all this is because I learned that there is a society of men that share the exact same views I have. By now you probably guessed I’m talking about Freemasonry.
So I studied a little, read different books with different approaches to Free Masons – both pro and con. I even read some fiction novels referring to them (Lost Symbol by Dan Brown). Finally, I came to a conclusion it’s a positive organization, if you don’t count individuals involved just with careerism in mind. If I understood their ways correctly, statistically speaking – it would be much easier to meet higher percentage of profound and educated gentleman in such surrounding than elsewhere. If some of you have deeper knowledge about the organization, feel free to send me an email. I’d love to debate some questions regarding all this, talk about science, religion, philosophy…
(2 votes) As he said in his own words, Emil is a great admirer of our posts. Passing by a store nearby where he lives, Emil noticed an interesting illusion and decided to take a picture of it, so he can share it with us. It took some time before I understood where the illusion hides, but I confirm it’s a good one. How many shelves do you see in this presentation rack? Would you consider both of us crazy, if we stated there are only 3 shelves present in this photo below? Yeah, that’s right! Before you read Emil’s explanation, try and spot the illusion yourselves. There are few more additional shots after the break.
The secret is that the end of the presentation rack has 2 mirrors, both placed at 45 degrees towards the street. These mirrors give the impression that the rack continues sideways. In reality, there is only one rack and two mirrors” – Emil
(20 votes) While we’re still discussing dimensions, there’s an interesting artwork discovered by Chelle and Pedro Rato (thanks for notifying me guys)! Would you believe me if I told you, that this custom-made backyard deck is actually flat as it can be? That’s right, the shown garden deck was specially designed for one of the Apple’s execs, art collector Jeff Dauber. It was built for him by Berkeley-based architect Thom Faulders. Btw, it doesn’t stop there – Faulders designed the exec’s whole house. I haven’t seen it, but I bet it looks awesome! More pictures after the break…
As hard as it may seem to believe, this garden is actually flat!
(15 votes) 
David L’Heureux found this animated Gif online, and decided to share it with us. As the logic of the flowing object below is more than my mind can comprehend, I have to make a reference to the 4D Hypercube we talked about years ago.
Even though the animation below doesn’t need to be impossible at all, I decided to share it with you cause of it’s awesomeness. I want to say clearly, I’m aware we can’t show 4th dimension in our 3-dimensional space, but this is the closest I can explain 4th dimension to you in plain words:
Imagine you lived in a 1-dimensional space, and wanted to steal money from me. You could only move forward and backward on a straight line. Preventing you to steal from my safe would easily be done, just by placing a single dot (barrier) on the line between you and my safe.
In a 2D environment, imagine you lived in old Nintendo’s Super Mario world, and could move in all directions, except further and closer from the monitor’s surface. What is in front and behind the monitor would be unimaginable to you. Preventing you to steal from my safe would easily be done just by drawing a rectangle around my safe. Diverting over the rectangle would be impossible for you, since you couldn’t comprehend the 3rd dimension.
Continue Reading …
(25 votes) 
Can you see another animal in this picture?
Chances are slim that you could spot another animal’s face in this picture on your left. Yet, apart the animal king there is another, more insignificant animal hiding there. Before you check the solution below, I can give you a little hint: the illusion works in a quite similar way the Hidden Owl Illusion did. This should be more than enough for you.
As there is not much more to say about this funny flick, I’ll update you with some site concerning news. If you noticed, apart from translating the iGoogle gadget, we updated both Yahoo and Windows widgets as well. You can get the from here if you’re interested in recent changes. Even though there weren’t any major tweaks, it’s just they should be more stable now, plus I’ve added some design changes. Go ahead, try them and report what you think.
On the personal level, I’m constantly getting hit by additional offline and online tasks. To keep with this pressure, I’m going to invest more energy in hiring additional helpers for Mighty Optical Illusions. Don’t worry, nothing will change from your view, except maybe more illusions and new technical options :) Enjoy today’s illusion, and check the solution part below:
(18 votes) I can’t thank you enough. You sent me over 300 translations since Saturday, and I’ve already implemented most of them! You should check your iGoogle homepage, and if it’s set to show your home language (at lest set it temporarily), you’ll see the change. I’d like to hear your comments on this. If you notice any misspellings or irregularities, be sure to notify me. Anyway, I hope this will make your user experience even better. We still need few languages though, but most of them are exotic so no need to rush. I’ll close the form and update those as well as soon as we receive them all.
I’ve been so concentrated on the technical part of this website, I let the illusions fall in quality a little. Hope I make it up to you in the following days. I think it’s about time I hire someone with passion in optical illusions writing, with little Wordpress experience. Having some additional writers, would definitely impact the article count. Think you’re perfect for this job? Apply, and if you prove yourself, you could be making something like 10 bucks per article just sitting and writing from home!
But let’s move on to the illusions again. Elisha Bennett sent me this interesting photo recently. I have to admit I had this one on my hard drive for years, but somehow completely missed the point. You will quickly notice that the photo was simply rotated for 180 degrees, but it’s amazing how the shadows look 3D and that the square looks more natural in this version, then in the original. It’s almost as if we’re seeing actual parallel dimension, where people represent shadow’s shadow.
(20 votes) 
I’ve made some changes to the iGoogle gadget over the past few days. One of the changes involves custom language, adjusted to your spoken language. For now, if your iGoogle is set to Russian, German, Croatian or Slovenian language, you should already see the change! But I’d like to make our gadget available in even more world languages! I have set this very simple form below, where you can help my by entering the translation in YOUR mother language! Don’t worry it takes less than minute to finish, and we can have it all completed in matter of days! Before I implement these translations, I’ll probably post the updated spreadsheet or some kind of wiki, where you’ll be able to proof-read all of the gathered results. Hope you appreciate my work ;)
By the way, what do you see in the right picture? Is that a swan, some kind of squirrel…or perhaps a rabbit? Please don’t forget to fill the form below so we can make the widget available in more languages! Also, if you encounter anything weird with the gadget itself, please report in comments!
(3 votes) Few days ago, Laura Bee sent me this photo by a Chinese artist called Xu Bing. Attached photo was taken on one of Xu’s classes titled: Square Calligraphy Classroom. The intention of this installation was to simulate a classroom-like setting, in a gallery or museum space. Desks are arranged with small containers of ink, brushes and a copybook with instructions on the basic principles of New English Calligraphy, a writing system invented and designed by the artist.
As people attempt to recognize and write these words, some of the thinking patterns that have been ingrained in them since they learned to read are challenged. It is the artists’ belief that people must have their routine thinking attacked in this way. While undergoing this process of estrangement and re-familiarization with one’s written language, the audience is reminded that the sensation of distance between other systems of language and one’s own is largely self-induced. That being said, if you look closely you’ll find the below characters not so hard to read…
(13 votes) 
"Afghan Girl" by Steve McCurry
Probably all of you saw this picture at some point of your life. Titled the “Afghan Girl”, this photo was named the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic. Although girl’s name was not known, her picture appeared on the June 1985 cover of the magazine. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. Gula was known throughout the world simply as the Afghan Girl until she was formally identified in early 2002.
Over time, many variations of Steve McCurry’s original photo appeared. At some point even in optical illusion form, as we see below. All I could find about this illusion, is that people can’t seem to look at it for too long. Apparently you get a headache, or become nervous at best. Maybe this isn’t the true nature of this illusion, but it just didn’t make me hallucinate like some other animations did. Wait few seconds for the animation to load (it’s 1MB big), and share your experience afterward.
(18 votes) One of our fans, mr. Jacenty found what appears to be the best hollow face optical illusion up to date. The hollow face illusion, as mentioned more than few times, gives you impression that the object you are seeing is embossed, while in reality it’s embedded. Sometimes the illusion works vice-versa as well. To remind you, convex equals embossed, while concave means embedded. First time I was introduced to this type of illusion, is when I saw Little Green Dragon video – the post that ranks well among top ten optical illusions of all time.
During my holidays in Spain in 2008 I found a nice optical illusion on one of the Barcelona’s houses. The head is concave, but with this lighting it looks like it is convex. Greetings from Calgary – Jacenty
(16 votes) 
