The harvest moon is one of his favorite illusions, and there just tons of little nuggets like this. It reads like an optical Wittgenstein: a series of short, numbered observations about the way light and vision work that you'd never have thought of, but once you read, you can't stop noticing.
E.g.: you can always predict exactly where a rainbow will be, you can tell leaded glass at a glance, wire meshes only cast vertical shadows, the green flash is very real, sunsets look exactly like sunrises, you can navigate by a polarized lens, hills look steeper from above for the same reason that steeples look shorter than the shadows they cast on a cloud (related to the harvest moon), and the line of the sun on the ocean always points right to you. Have you ever noticed atmospheric perspective, or how drastically colors change with distance? You will after reading this book.
Minnaert makes some interesting claims about the harvest moon in particular. For example, lie on your back and look at the sky for a while: the flattened dome effect tends to wash out rather quickly, and the moon looks roughly the same size in any direction. He also claims that binocular vision is closely related to the perceptual flattening of the celestial dome, and one-eyed people do not perceive the harvest moon. I'm not sure if he's totally correct, but it's interesting to think about, isn't it?
It changed the way I look at the world. I believe scientific consensus has moved on in certain areas in the years since it was originally composed, but Minnaert's careful thought has aged superbly. Definitely worth it.
The harvest moon is one of his favorite illusions, and there just tons of little nuggets like this. It reads like an optical Wittgenstein: a series of short, numbered observations about the way light and vision work that you'd never have thought of, but once you read, you can't stop noticing.
E.g.: you can always predict exactly where a rainbow will be, you can tell leaded glass at a glance, wire meshes only cast vertical shadows, the green flash is very real, sunsets look exactly like sunrises, you can navigate by a polarized lens, hills look steeper from above for the same reason that steeples look shorter than the shadows they cast on a cloud (related to the harvest moon), and the line of the sun on the ocean always points right to you. Have you ever noticed atmospheric perspective, or how drastically colors change with distance? You will after reading this book.
Minnaert makes some interesting claims about the harvest moon in particular. For example, lie on your back and look at the sky for a while: the flattened dome effect tends to wash out rather quickly, and the moon looks roughly the same size in any direction. He also claims that binocular vision is closely related to the perceptual flattening of the celestial dome, and one-eyed people do not perceive the harvest moon. I'm not sure if he's totally correct, but it's interesting to think about, isn't it?
It changed the way I look at the world. I believe scientific consensus has moved on in certain areas in the years since it was originally composed, but Minnaert's careful thought has aged superbly. Definitely worth it.