MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A video of eight dots rolling along a circle is more than first meets the eye.
YouTube user brusspup, who creates videos of optical illusions, uploaded the video Monday. It now has more than 2 million views.
As the video demonstrates, each dot isn’t actually rolling along the circle — they’re moving along straight lines. You can recognize this without the help of the lines by focusing on one dot at a time. If you look at all of the dots at once, however, your brain just recognizes a rolling ring of dots.
Beginning at 0:43, one dot is added at a time. When the fourth dot appears, you’ll notice they form a rotating square.
Brusspup writes, “This is just another example of looking deeper into something so simple and discovering a hidden pattern.”
Slate’s Phil Plait also notes the dots move at varying velocities. This is easiest to see at 0:44.
Brusspup credits Arthur Shapiro and Alex Rose Henig of American University for the original creation of the illusion and adds, “For those that say this is not an illusion: Illusion Definition: something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality.”
The illusion utilizes cycloids, which are defined as “a curve (resembling a series of arches) traced by a point on a circle being rolled along a straight line.” Click here to learn more about the math behind the illusion.
