The Intersection of Art and Science Fall 2017

An optical illusion is something that deceives the eye by appearing to be other than it is. Anamorphosis is a type optical illusion that utilizes distorted perspective. This type of illusion forces the viewer to stand at a certain point or to use special devices in order to reconstitute the image. There are two common forms of anamorphosis called “oblique” and “catoptric”. Oblique illusions the image must be viewed from a position that is very far from the usual in front and straight ahead position that we normally expect images to be looked at. A great example of an oblique illusion is Hans Holbein’s anamorphic skull that he painted in his painting The Ambassadors . This illusion is only able to be seen if the viewer is very close to the bottom lefthand corner of the pice looking upwards. He used this anamorphic skull to as a sort of visual puzzle that would engage the viewer and also was a symbol of death always being around. It is amazing to me that he was able to create such an ac...

The Cyanotype process is a photographic technique where a paper is sensitized in the dark (away from Ultra Violet Light) with a photo-sensitive emulsion. This emulsion is made up of two parts; part A being Potassium Ferricyanide mixed with distilled water and part B being Ferric Ammonium Citrate (green) mixed with distilled water. Part A and Part B are combined just before sensitizing the paper in order to maintain a long shelf life when the two parts are not in use. Once the sensitized paper is dry, it can be exposed to sunlight light and then thoroughly washed with regular water. Whatever bit of paper that was exposed to light will become blue, and any paper that was not exposed to light will remain white. This process was first introduced by an astronomer, chemist and mathematician named Sir John Frederick William Herschel around 1820 during his experimentation with Hyposulphite of soda, silver, and salts. Herschel was born in 1792 of British courtier Mary Pitt and astronomer Wil...

During our final trip to NASA I found it very interesting to hear how they will be handling the NISAR missions data. The NISAR mission is a collaborative project between the Indian space agency and NASA which is similar to how other missions and satellite launches are produced. The data for these collaborative missions is collected and shared with the world. This is different from the normal process where the data is collected, but not released to the entire public only to scientists and organizations that have been approved. Up until now the United States has been using Europe’s Sentinel 1A an 1B satellites as a part of an agreement to share the data that is collected. The NISAR satellite will be NASA’s version of the Sentinel 1A an 1B satellites. It will have a stronger radar than those two satellites and will also be able to capture two full images of the earth every 12 days.   I found it very interesting to hear about how political the release of collected data is. In India fo...

Mt. Wilson History and Discoveries The Mount Wilson Observatory was founded by George Ellery Halle. The Observatory was originally a station for the yerkes Observatory, but was soon acquired and funded by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. With the addition of a physics laboratory and administrative and maintenance office in Pasadena, the Mt. Wilson Observatory was first comprehensive observatory complex in the world. Halle was an astronomer who discovered magnetic fields in sunspots and helped create the 60 inch Hale telescope and 100 inch Hooker telescope which are located on Mt. Wilson.The Hale telescope was finished in 1908 and was the largest telescope in the world until the creation of the 100 inch Hooker telescope which was remained the largest telescope in the world from 1917 through 1949. In 1949 the Palomar Observatory telescope was finished in San Diego, and was the new largest telescope. Until the Palomar Observatory, Mt. Wilson was reigned as the epicenter of a...

Optical illusions are when your brain is perceiving what you are seeing as something different than what is actually in front of you. They show you that you don't always see what your brain is telling you, you are seeing. They are about how your brain perceives information, not about how your eye sees an actual image. Despite the name "optical illusions” which leads you to believe that the illusion is in the eye, it is all in your brain; for this reason, scientist Michael Bach says that they should be called visual illusions. A person’s observation is proven to be subjective by optical illusions.  Not all optical illusions are made within the confines of real life but some are made within the eye itself. There is an optical illusion called 'floaters' which is where small specks, shadows, or spots seemingly are floating in the air. Not all are seen as dark spot but to some people these areas are white. This happens because some irregularity in eye fluid builds up...

Optical illusions use color, light, and shapes in a way that creates patterns that can be deceptive to the human eye and mind. Our eyes are conditioned evolutionarily to see things a certain way that makes sense to our brains. We see what is useful and significant to us in ways that have benefitted us through human evolution while other organisms have different mechanisms of seeing the world to cater to their specific needs that differ from ours. We perceive light, color, and shapes in a way that is inherently human and we understand optics enough in order to know why we can distort the things we see. Even Aristotle in 350 BC noted how easily our eyes can be fooled. Whether it be through musings of ancient Greek philosophers or natural phenomena, the world is filled with optical illusions. Sometimes we know they are occurring but still have a hard time getting our eyes to see the truth. For example, the Hermann grid makes our eyes see little grey dots within white intersections ...

One optical illusion is a blivet, also called the impossible trident. It is called an impossible trident because it is impossible to understand. The shape has three cylinder prongs at one end and then gradually turns into rectangular prongs. If you cover half of the object you will find that the figure is possible to comprehend. When looking at the figure you first try to distinguish the outlines of the shape, and from this your try to perceive the boundaries of the shape. Your eyes become confused because of the several ambiguous contours. The outer edges can be interpreted as a rectangle shape or that of cylinder. Altogether, the figure gives contradictory cues for the depth estimation of the middle prong. The illusion is a simple angle trick played on the visual system. It is all about perception. The best optical illusions challenge our perception of reality. Our minds tend to reconstruct 3D imager out of the flat 2D image; it creates the illusion of depth. The printmaker M.C. Esc...