Best Illusion of the Year Competition

Here’s a copy with slight variations of a stunning new animation of the Ebbinghaus Illusion, by Christopher Blair, Gideon Caplovitz and Ryan E.B. Mruczek.  Their version won the Best Illusion of the Year Competition in 2014, a few weeks ago.  It’s a brilliant competition whose lead organiser is Susanna Martinez-Conde, and is accumulating a fascinating illusion resource as the ten finalists are added each year.

In the movie, as the figure moves up and down the screen, all the circles seem to change size.  Yet objectively only the outer ring of circles do so:  the central circle remains exactly the same size throughout.  It’s so vivid it’s hard to believe, but I’ve just added some yellow rails as a track for the central circle.  You can see that the circle always just fits the rails – and they don’t change size.

For more info and links on the Ebbinghaus illusion (aka Titchener Circles) see our earlier post on the traditional, static version.

One thought on “Best Illusion of the Year Competition”

  1. Dear all,
    My name is Mugur and I am writing you this from Romania.
    I am also passioned about tessellations and your website inspired me in creating tessellations.
    Still, the reason i write to you is that i have just published a small booklet as a tutorial on Escher compositions.
    The book will be free from tomorrow 01 October and you’re more than welcomed to see it at Amazon as a kindle book.
    Any kind of feed-back from your side will be more that appreciated by my side.

    Wishing you all my best from here
    Mugur Neacsu

    you can see the book called “Escher step by step in ten sketches” at this address:
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NW82LNG

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