Fun with colours

25Jun09

A friend of mine, R (who seems to have an endless supply of Cool Internet Stuff) linked to this picture on facebook. What colour are the spirals?

The short version is that the “blue” and “green” colours that seem so clearly distinct are actually exactly the same colour, a blueish green. It’s all to do with context and how the adjacent colours affect how the brain perceives the same shade of green differently in different places. Bad Astronomy has a full explanation.

I used to be rather fond of optical illusions, but I’ve never seen this one before. Fascinating stuff.

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Tags: Bad Astronomy, Colour, Optical Illusion, Science, Vision