About the Author

I'm Stuart, an independent web developer with an interest in all things science, and I write and build Optical Wonderful. Every page on the site - the illusion entries, the science explainers, the artist profiles, and the interactive demos - is my work, and I'm the person who reads and answers the corrections and suggestions that come in through the Contact page.

Why optical illusions

My particular fascination is the science of the mind - how certain visual stimuli can trigger misperceptions, and the many ways the brain can play tricks on us. What draws me to optical illusions is that they make those tricks visible. Most of the time, the brain's shortcuts work so smoothly that we never notice them; an illusion catches them in the act, and shows that what we "see" is the brain's best guess about the world rather than a direct recording of it. Even when you know exactly how an illusion works, you usually can't switch it off - and that gap between knowing and seeing is what I set out to explore here.

How I work on the site

I start each illusion page from the original research: the paper or book where the effect was first described, and the studies that later explained it. I list those sources at the bottom of every illusion and science page, so you can check any claim against the literature yourself. Where researchers still disagree - the moon illusion is the classic example - I say so rather than picking a winner.

Wherever an effect can be reproduced in a browser, I build a live version rather than relying on a static picture, because an illusion you can test is far more convincing than one you're told about. The interactive demos are written from scratch in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and most of them include a control that switches the illusion off - removing the blank in the change blindness flicker, making the peripheral drift ramp symmetric, or adding a depth cue to the spinning dancer - so you can see exactly which ingredient does the work.

Corrections and contact

If you find an error, a better source, or an illusion that deserves a page, email me at [email protected]. I apply corrections to the page directly and refresh its "last updated" date when I do. The Editorial & Sourcing Policy explains the process in more detail.