Zöllner Illusion

What: The Zöllner Illusion (pronounced TSOLL-ner, or just “zollner” if you’re not feeling fancy) is one of those delightfully old illusions that still gets me every time. It was discovered way back in 1860 by Johann Zöllner, a German astrophysicist who was probably just trying to look at fabric patterns and got thoroughly distracted [1]. Once you start playing around with the controls, the effect will be pretty clear… and it’s at least a little bit more fun to me knowing that the diagonal lines are causing my brain to glitch out.