Einstein and Monroe

I just read an article that claimed something like "This test shows whether you need to wear glasses or not!". With titles like these, I usually assume it's some bogus article, but my girlfriend told me that it was actually interesting, so I gave it a shot, and damn, I was surprised!

Basically, AsapSCIENCE is a YouTube channel with educational and scientific purposes. They just published a book where one of the topics is eyesight, and they show a picture that, at a first glance, looks like Albert Einstein. Now, the test started by telling me that if I didn't see Einstein, I needed glasses, which I thought was weird. The picture is large enough, it's not that blurred out, everyone should see Einstein.

The test goes on to say that some people may see Marilyn Monroe instead of Einstein, and this is where things started sounding ridiculous to me. They state that, when looking at this picture from far away, you no longer see Einstein. I was skeptic, so, naturally, I stood up, walked to the back of my room, and stared at the monitor.

I was amazed.

Seriously, I was looking at Monroe, not Einstein. What! How! I ran back to the computer, thinking that the image might have been a .GIF or something, and as I ran closer, Monroe turned into Einstein. I read the rest of the article and found the actual explanation, that the image is composed of both Monroe and Einstein, which mingle with different frequencies. Our eyes, according to the distance, capture these frequencies differently, and make us see one of the two images.

I thought this was amazing, I really did. So much so, that when I have my own house, I know what painting I want to have on the wall. I can already imagine my unsuspecting guests, by the door, talking about Monroe, and when they get to the couch they'll realize "Wait a minute, the painting changed!". It's gonna be so much fun!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this small experiment.
Dave