Mind Games
6 p.m. Thursday
Science Museum Oklahoma
2100 N.E. 52nd
www.sciencemuseumok.org
602-6664
Brains are amazing and beautiful machines, able to translate massive amounts of information pouring in from the human senses to decipher the world around us.
That’s why tricking them is so much fun in Science Museum Oklahoma’s brand-new permanent exhibit, “Mind Games,” opening Thursday night, where optical illusions will give your noggin fits.
For instance, a two-dimensional image uses perspective to make two identical lines look as if they are of different sizes.
“I actually had to measure it with a pen when we first brought it in to make sure we weren’t pulling a fast one,” said Clayton Moore, the museum’s wonder instigator and relevance czar. “And it doesn’t matter how many times you look at it. That’s what’s fun about an exhibit like this: The smartest person can say, ‘I know that these two lines are the same size,’ but that doesn’t change how your body perceives them.”
Included are three-dimensional pieces designed to trick the mind into forming shapes and lines where they don’t actually exist.
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2011.