Get Off The Earth Optical Illusion
May 02, 2008 by Vurdlak
Stephanie Jones mailed me this awesome flick! Let's make her describe it herself: "Hi! I really enjoy your site, and when I came across this in my lecturer's blog, I thought I'd better send it in to you. It looks like another version of the Leprechauns illusion you have. One of the most popular puzzles ever created was the Get Off the Earth puzzle, invented by American's premier puzzlist, Sam Loyd, in 1898. Over ten million copies of the puzzle were produced.The puzzle shows a number of Chinese warriors around the rim of a circular piece of cardboard fastened at the center to a larger piece of cardboard so it can be turned. Part of each warrior is inside the circle and part is outside. When the disk is rotated from its initial position to its second position, one warrior disappears! The challenge is to explain how this "disappearing act" works.
Well, there never were 13 Chinamen. There were many parts of Chinamen, arms, legs, bodies, heads, and swords. And each had tiny slivers missing. Then when the Earth was rotated, these pieces were slightly rearranged. In particular, each of the 12 Chinamen gained a sliver of a Chinaman from his neighbor. For example, at the lower left, there are two Chinamen next to each other. The top one is missing a foot. When the Earth is rotated, he gains a foot from his neighbor on the right. That neighbor gains two feet (he lost one) and one small piece of a leg, etc.
This is a particularly good example of a vanishing puzzle. See The Extra Square, which is a vanishing puzzle in reverse. You can download the graphic below or the higher resolution file getoffearth.pdf Print on lightweight card stock. Cut out the second figure of the two figures. Place the disk so that the arrow points N.E. and count the warriors. Then turn the disk so that arrow points NW and count again.
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Mighty Optical Illusions (c) is a website dedicated to optical illusions, magic tricks and puzzles. Mighty Illusions, Mighty Networks, Mighty Optical Illusions, moillusions.com, moillusions and variations are copyrighted trademark of Mighty Networks, and can not be used without written permission. All photos, pictures, videos and other shapes of art placed on this web site were submitted by individuals not connected with moillusions.com While most of the submission are made by their original artists, some of them were probably just collected from internet. If you hold copyrights to any of the illusions posted to this website, and would like us to remove them immediately, email us and we'll be glad to do so.
I wonder if old mr Loyd had issues with Chinese people?
that is so cool! i thought it was pretty easy to figure out though...
This is amazing, very clever. It took a little time to figure it out but once I did it was all so simple......I love this site....keep them coming.
that's pretty cool
Nice. Not the best. But it's OK.
A.T.
Wow, that's really racist.
sick! its almost like the soccer team one.
first comment i guess?
I had to read that a few times to get it.
Pretty sweet!
oh I get it thats coolio
these are so awesome! I printed them out and they work! Cant believe my eyes!
That's great...
Really cool!!!!
nice,
i know how its done
FART
this one's a bit more obvious how they got the extra person than the leprachaun one was..
What is it ?
Very Nice! really had me confused before i read the whole thing but i really like it :D
does anyone know how this works??
*scrathces head in confusion.
duude, thats really kool
plus, y'know, just to say: FIRST COMMENT!!!i!
i saw another one like this where there are 11 soccer players and it comes in 4 quarters.then on top the 2 quarters swith places and it makes another player by taking parts from the other players. This is even better.it is amaizing stuff. Whoever takes the time to make these things must have Lots of evtra time on their hands.
Interesting... First comment?
That is so cool!!
Took me a while to figure out why it was doing that, then I did. YAY
Great!, is very original, i am glad that someone took the time to design it.
but what about the message...?
swicked this is a great illusion though i've seen it done before still very cool
That's cool!
I don't get it. I still seeing all!
I must say I love this site and I look at it every day however, today is really cool.