Illusions
Ray Hyman believes that he was responsible for getting Andrus interested in optical illusions. Hyman showed him the Mach-Eden illusion using an index card. Andrus didn't seem interested, but came back to Hyman some time later and showed him how he had improved it by inventing an illusion of a house.
Speaking at the Skeptic's Toolbox about the importance of understanding optical illusions, Andrus said, "The point of demonstrating illusions is not merely to show we can be fooled... rather to appreciate that the human mind is in fact working correctly... we look at a parked car on the street, we assume that the part of the car we can't see is there too; our brains have to do this so that we can make sense of the world around us".
In 1954, Andrus created the famous "Linking Pins", a close-up illusion in which closed safety pins are rapidly linked together in twos, threes and chains.
Invited by long-time friend and fellow magician Ray Hyman, Andrus brought many of his optical illusions to the annual Skeptic's Toolbox, held each August on the University of Oregon's campus. Two of the more popular Andrus illusions the "impossible box" and "Oregon vortex plank illusion" are explained in this Skeptical Inquirer article.
In the months before his death, Andrus continued to invent illusions. His media were common household items: metal springs, rope, wire, cardboard, wood 2 X 4's and steel rods. Many of his illusions are viewable on the Internet and some have already expanded on his inventions.
Read more about this topic: Jerry Andrus
Famous quotes containing the word illusions:
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)
“Illusions are certainly expensive amusements: but the destruction of illusions is even more expensive—when looked upon as an amusement, which to many people is what it undeniably is.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“We are all adult learners. Most of us have learned a good deal more out of school than in it. We have learned from our families, our work, our friends. We have learned from problems resolved and tasks achieved but also from mistakes confronted and illusions unmasked. . . . Some of what we have learned is trivial: some has changed our lives forever.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)