Perplexing
Perspectives
Conflicting viewpoints coexist
at the crossroads of math and artI
n Plato’s allegory of the cave, chained prisoners
face a blank cavern wall from the time they are
born, the only reality they have ever known.
When people and objects passing behind the
captives project shadows on the wall, the prison-
ers believe that their experience of the world is
complete, never realizing that their knowledge
is impoverished to a vast degree.
A new virtual art exhibit, which is being hosted
by the National Museum of Mathematics in
New York City, highlights how, whenever we
examine a three-dimensional item from a single
vantage point, we can only ever observe a partial
projection, or shadow, of the entire object in
front of us. Because we experience the 3-D
world around us through the filter of our 2-D
retinas, our visual experience is sometimes
no better than that of the unfortunates in
Plato’s cave.
The intellectual heir of Dutch graphic artist
M. C. Escher, Anton Bakker is a contemporary ANTON BAKKERStephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde are professors
of ophthalmology at the State University of New York and the organizers
of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest. They have co-authored Sleights
of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday
Deceptions and Champions of Illusion: The Science behind Mind-Boggling Images
and Mystifying Brain Puzzles.ILLUSIONS