8 Mind-Blowing Illusions That Will Make You Forget Your Name

Every year, mathematicians and physicists receive awards for tricking our eyes with optical illusions.

FunnyModo gathered the best of their works so you can marvel at them for yourself.

Coming Home From the Mill

Coming Home From the Mill by Laurence Stephen Lowry was lucky to become an illusion. It got more depressing with rain and lightning, but the people in it will finally be able to get home. Or will they?

The false roof

Most 3D illusions drawn in chalk on asphalt are based on this effect. Our brain interprets the image it sees at a right angle, turning it from 2D into 3D.

Changing colors

We see one and the same object differently depending on its surroundings. In this case, the illusion’s creators say the colors of the lines don’t change — it’s us who see them differently for the change of the background.

The snow outside

The snow you watch through the horizontal blinds moves faster. You can control the weather by hanging such blinds! Oh wait, it’s just your brain making you think so.

Gabor elements

These striped spots have been part of lots of other illusions already. They can fool you by making you think they spin and move around, but don’t believe your eyes: they’re staying where they are.

Balls that move as they please

These balls seem to break all the rules of physics. You think it’s impossible, and you’re right: it all becomes clear when you look at the construction from another angle.

There’s no red here

A popular illusion that proves we generally perceive the color of usual objects as we’re used to them, regardless of the actual colors or lighting. For example, ripe strawberries are red, and bananas are yellow. In fact, there’s no red in this picture whatsoever.

A silhouette in the zoetrope

Have you ever seen a classic zoetrope? It has pictures inside all over its circumference. If you look through the slits, the pictures come alive. In this case, it’s vice versa: the bird silhouettes are on the outside, but when the zoetrope spins, the bird seems to fly.

Two-faced cylinders

Now this one is mind-boggling. Are those circles, lozenges, or squares? Actually, none of these things. The trick is in the shape of the cylinders and the tilt of the mirror. This is how the cylinders really look, by the way.