Illusions, Misconceptions & Misunderstandings - I

WARNING: This series of posts should be read under Parental Sub-conscious Guidance. Not suitable for Minors (under-)grads with only trivial encounters with Physic(ist)s.

Let us start by analyzing the topic first. Illusions mean here optical ones: tricks played by your eyes on you - nothing to do with magic and/or David Blaine. Misconceptions & Misunderstandings are used as mortals would normally use them but with restriction to Physics as will be demonstrated here and/or other posts down the line.

IMM 1

Standing outside Pathmark (PM) waiting for the 'Mall Route' bus to arrive, I was scanning its entrance, the pavement, the parking lot, the road beyond it and the (maybe clouded) sky. After a while, I happened to notice a guy exiting PM carrying a plastic bag and I could discern that there were two words (in BIG font) written on the side towards me (obviously!). He came a little closer, I could make out some of the characters and deduced that the words were 'french bikinis'. Feeling triumphant (that I could read words on objects so distant without my specs!), my eyes wandered off to look for some more challenges.

After some time my head completed its 180 degrees turn, returned to the default location and saw that guy (with plastic bag) again much closer now. So I decided to take a look again at the bag and confirm that I was correct. Lo and Behold, this is what I saw:

fresh thinking!!! What the hell??? Now that IS a New Height of Irony, Illusion, Misplaced & Embarrassing THOUGHTs... I could not suppress a big smile and obviously you would also be guffawing right now!

Below I reconstruct the conversation between my eyes & brain that took place that day:

E: Transmitting an image for word-recognition...

B: Image received. Need a hi-res image. Scan again...

E: Request received. Scanning... Re-transmission Complete.

B: Good. Editing image... Extracting characters... Analyzing Patterns... Searching through dictionary... Words found: 'french bikinis'. Task Completed. Accuracy: 95%.

E(thinking): french bi..ki..nis??? well, if you say so!

E(after some time): Transmitting a close-up view of earlier image... Repeat of earlier task requested.

B: OK. Editing image... Extracting characters... Ana...(shocked)...nd: 'fresh thinking'. (speechless!)

E: What the??? YOU said 95% accuracy earlier for 'french...' Were you hallucinating or what???

B: Shut the HELL up... YOU sent a low-res image earlier... I won't tolerate that line coming from you...

E: Oh yeah!!! How the HELL can you 'analyze patterns', 'extract characters', 'search through dictionary' and misjudge '-ing' for '-inis'. Even I can 'see' a word better than that to fit the 'pattern'...

B: Humor me!!!...

E: 'biking'.

B(dumbstruck, embarrassed): Okkaaayyyy... So if you think you are better than me, why the hell did you send the task to me, you... you - 'Three-Moon detecting' worthless pieces of some broken obsolete optical instrument...

E(hurt & sniveling): ya... whatever... you were the one who forgot to bring along specs... Eyelids Shut.

B(thinking): ...man, I Screwed up big time today!!! They will come around eventually, though - how long can they remain shut, anyway???

E: I can 'hear' You up there...

B: Open up... Here comes the bus...

And then 'we' returned.

That is all for IMM 1. See you again in IMM-II...

Afterthought: My eyes and brain get along pretty well. Such skirmishes (as portrayed above) are solely for reader's entertainment and should not be taken seriously. Any alarmed/concerned reader should probably engage in something more fruitful/useful than reading my blog posts.

3-Moon and More...