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- Up one level
- Optical illusions & visual phenomena, by Michael Bach
Optical illusions neither trick the eye nor fool the brain, but … … are fascinating! They also teach us about our visual perception, and its limitations. Emphasis here is on beauty, interactive experiments, and attempts at explanation of the visual mechanisms involved.
- The Case Against Reality
Amanda Gefter, The Atlantic, Apr 25, 2016 A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses. Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman explains why human perceptions of an independent reality are all illusions.
- The Lady Vanishes (24 min)
Producer David Kestenbaum became obsessed with one trick he loved as a kid—when David Copperfield made the statue of liberty disappear. (24 minutes) Act 2 from 619: The Magic Show, This American Life, Jun 30, 2017 Just a few years before he got the internship at NPR that started him in radio, our host Ira Glass had another career. He performed magic at children's birthday parties. A powerful sense of embarrassment has prevented him from ever doing an episode on the subject, but when he learned that producer David Kestenbaum was also a kid conjurer, they decided to dive in together.