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How to draw illusions?

Drawing optical illusions, math equations, and other things that people stop to look at

  • Help me draw interesting simple things. I've learned how to draw the classic Penrose triangle, the impossible cube, the Devil's Pitchfork and some other optical illusions but I'd like to expand my repertoire. (Think: whiteboard graffiti). Complex math equations (like the limerick "integral z squared d z, from one to the cube root of three...") and things like the http://www.freesunpower.com/images/ohm_circle3.gif (the diagram derived from Ohm's law that shows power as well as current, voltage and resistance) count too. Anything simple: line drawings, especially ones that can be filled in with color (like the Penrose triangle and cube) are a super-bonus. Thanks!

  • Answer:

    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/296904/easy_mental_multiplication_trick/ multiplication trick might be simpler than you wanted but i found it very interesting.

ostranenie at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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Escher did lots of http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~gotsman/Escher/Images/Escher/faces.jpg where there is no "negative space", or background. Just start lightly drawing simple faces or animals or objects, then look at the background spaces, and turn these into objects or animals by modifying the originals. You don't need to tile these--you can fill the whole paper with unique drawings. It might help if you cut some out and moved/rotated them on the background.

weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade.. those are called http://www.tessellations.org/.

nimsey lou

Very interesting, but I'm looking for more one-shot drawings that have a finite beginning and end. I'm going to have to throw down some tessellated octahedron origami though, for sure!

ostranenie

Not really new, but I like this blueprint of three impossible objects combined: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/gifs/ImpossibleFork.gif

Glum

this used to be my favorite thing to draw as a kid: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/illusion/images/illus36.gif

farmersckn

Thanks again - Does anyone know the author of the Impossible Fork blueprint diagram Glum posted?

ostranenie

soma lkzx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations are surprisingly compact (partly because the notation hides a lot of calculus machinery), but hidden in those four little small equations lie the complete description of how all things E&M work - light, radio, microwaves, electricity, magnetism, radiation, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_formula (often expressed as ejπ + 1 = 0) contains 5 fundamental mathematical symbols/ideas in one very elegant equation, and in general the equation is very useful when manipulating/transforming expressions involving complex numbers.

Rhomboid

Note that if you want to use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity most people would write it eπi + 1 = 0. Use of j to indicate the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit is mostly confined to electrical engineers and Python programmers.

CrunchyFrog

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