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What's very cool about this is that this illusion to me illuminates how 
our eyes/ brains work.  As I understand it, from what I learned in a 
session at the ASTC Conference*, the molecules (structures?) triggered 
by light in the retina of our eyes that send the signal to our brains 
snap in reaction to the light but are slower to recover to their 
original state.   We often describe it as "saturation"  or "fatigue" ,  
but it's really the recovery time of the physical system.  Since the 
sensors that see the pink in this case are not allowed recover time 
when you are staring at one point, we see white light minus the pink-  
the green dot.   Following the blinking-out dot with our eyes is moving 
where the pink dots fall on our retinas, allowing for recovery time.

Is that cool or what?

Damn! Now I've got to build one more device for my Color Play exhibit.

Best, Clifford Wagner
www.scienceinteractives.com

* ("Blitzing- from idea to prototype".   Yea!-Thanks, Julie Bowen and 
Devon Hamilton and my team.  We made a nearly complete interactive on 
the eye mechanism in the session)


On Nov 4, 2005, at 10:25 AM, Rachel Maldonado wrote:

> http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html
> <http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html>
>

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