Necker's 1832 paper reveals the famous optical illusion now known as the Necker cube
Necker, 1832: "An optical phænomenon on viewing a figure of a geometrical solid"
In 1832, L. A. Necker published observations on optical phenomena seen in Switzerland and on a phenomenon occurring when viewing a crystal or geometrical solid. This paper introduced the Necker cube, a wireframe cube that spontaneously flips orientation in perception. The discovery became a classic example of how the brain interprets ambiguous visual information.
I observed that the lines of the crystal sometimes appeared to change their relative position, so that what was before the front seemed now to be the back.
- no_use_for_a_na
As a Norwegian; my culture is not your costume. æøå ;)
- akkartik
I had to shorten the title to fit it, but there's so much here and the Necker cube is just a final addendum. This is what publishing was intended to be like!
- andai
I now come to the point which you particularly wished me to describe to you mean the luminous appearance of trees, shrubs and birds when seen from the foot of mountain, little before sun-rise.
I saw something similar at sunset the other day, a luminous dog! A fluffy white dog: the last sunbeams hit him from behind, so that he had an amber corona.