Things are not as they appear. What a famous line that magician’s use, yet, that is actually the fact which will be used to deceive the viewer. They will either be led to believe what they are seeing, so that it must be magic, or to accept what they see as different from what they know is true, but doable anyway.

There is a story of bringing a person out of the jungle who had only lived amongst the thick trees so that they had never seen a person from far away. Once away from the dense trees, the people far off appeared as little people, and the jungle person claimed that they did not know there was such a thing as little people.

How fascinating is it to see a tiny plane way up in the sky and know how big that plane is because you have been inside one? The high ones where you only see a smoke tail behind a black speck are between 5 and 6 miles up in the air. Hard to imagine that those planes are flying below the peek of Mount Everest, but then, I have never seen Mount Everest. A cloud that we see off in the horizon appears closer, making me think I want to hike that way to be under it. The size of the clouds deceive our minds into thinking the distances are much shorter, even though they are 10 or more miles away.

The reverse is actually true when looking over water. The horizon appears incredibly far off, but that is not as far as we think. Why is this? The water is flat giving neither the viewer, nor what is being viewed, a higher position. All of the instances mentioned above have to do with changes in altitude.

Thus, the secret to the magic tricks is our view. What we see is often in a mirror. It is either closer or father from the mirror making the object look a different size than it really is, or worse, seeing an object different from the one you are supposed to be seeing. Fascinating to consider the effects of distance on our perception.

I hope that you have a Happy Friday.