My niece the other day was telling me: "The moon is following me!" Is it true or false? Why do we see the moon moving with us while we are driving at a speed of tens of kilometers per hour?
Well, it is an illusion that is explained by what is called parallax. That is, distant moving objects appear much slower or even fixated than nearby objects when we move our head. So we are driving the car at a certain speed yet when we look at the moon we see it following us wherever we go!
Another example of a parallax is when you look at the speedometer in the car, while driving you see a reading different from the reading that a friend sees sitting next to you! And this is what happens when you change the angle of view.
In Michio Kaku's book, he explains how the brain deceives us by making us believe that we see more than we actually see. For example, do we actually see yellow and brown? Or is our brain subconsciously making an approximation to these colors? What is amazing is that our eyes are equipped with sensors that see only red, blue, and green! So we only see those colors and approximations of other colors! We also have two dimensional retinas so how come we see three dimensional objects? Well we have two eyes separated by few inches so we see the objects through two different angles and our brain subconsciously, again, makes us believe we see in depth! So, is reality really real?
1. Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax
2.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XsXXD8iEyU
Dec 17, 2013 - Uploaded by Knopfdoubleday
Dr. Kaku explains why he wrote this fascinating book about the frontiers and the future of ...
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