Nice photo of a rowboat on a very still lake (original by Benjamin Mendlowitz). Apart from the ugly crease down the center, what's wrong with it? See anything peculiar?

Optical Illusion of the Week?

We are of course looking slightly downward at a rowboat resting on a water surface; the water surface is required by elementary principles of physics to be precisely level, so we should be able to see into the rowboat. Yet in the top image, the inside of the boat is concealed, being shown only in the apparent "reflection." So the original image must be upside down.

How about a bonus, a somewhat related illusion that is fairly new (1980). It's usually called the "Thatcher Illusion" because it was first demonstrated with a photo of the then prime minister of England, Margaret Thatcher. We demonstrate it here with a currently active politico of similar political stripe. See anything strange about either of the two upside down photos of George W. Bush? Probably not, yet if the same two photos are inverted, one looks incredibly strange.

Miserable Failure

What's the difference? If you can't describe to yourself precisely what has been done to the "strange" image, click here. The best on-line version of the illusion can be found here.

Jump to Illusion 25, 50, 75, 100, 110, 120, 130.

A SHORT LIST OF ILLUSION LINKS:

An extremely nice collection of very colorful illusions, many of which were new to me.

Individual Project LITE pages are linked elsewhere on these illusion pages, but here's the full directory.

Individual ZONEFLASH animated illusion pages are linked elsewhere on these illusion pages, but here's the full directory.

Although Akioshi Kitaoka's illusion pages are randomly distributed, like the ones you are looking at now, there actually is an index, here.

A long article on illusions, with dozens of animated illustrations.