Scientific American Mind - USA (2022-01 & 2022-02)

The Allure

of Mirages

Our centuries-long fascination
with optical phenomena

In June 1827, after a full day of travel, journalist
Richard Madden arrived to Adjerond, Egypt, near
Suez. He looked at the horizon across the vast des-

ert and was struck by a vision that would stay with

him long after his voyage. “At one moment, the rip-

pled surface of a lake was before my eyes ... the

mosques and minarets were distinct, and several

times I asked my Bedouins if that were not Suez

before us; but they laughed at me and said it was

all sand,” he later wrote.

A 2020 paper by science historian Fiona

Amery of the University of Cambridge posits that

mirages first became the object of popular captiva-

tion in Britain in the 1820s and 1830s, a period

that exploded with vivid descriptions in novels, sci-

entific journals and travel literature. It was also

during this time that the public grew enthralled

with the unreliability of sight, as demonstrated by

magic-lantern shows and instruments such as the

stereoscope or the zoetrope.

In contrast with perceptual experiences such as

pareidolia and afterimages, mirages are proper op-

tical illusions. This means that their fundamental

explanation lies in optics: the science of the behav-

ior and properties of light. Meanwhile many so- hwo/Getty Images

Mirage in the desert, near Aswan and Abu Simbel, Egypt.

Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik 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