How do the red/blue 3D glasses work?
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The image you’re looking at is actually two images overlaid, with one being slightly offset to the left and coloured entirely in red, and one being offset to the right and being coloured entirely in blue. This means that when you put the glasses on, with the coloured filters, your left eye only sees the left offset image and your right eye only sees the right offset image (because the blue plastic filters out the red light and vice versa). The results in a sense of depth akin to how your two eyes see slightly offset versions of the world.
The reason you can see in 3D in the first place is because the image you see through each eye is slightly different. You can experiment with that by masking one eye, then the other. You will see some objects shift relatively to other ones. Also, if you keep one eye masked, it gets harder to grab an item that is far enough (you have some space awareness sense that will compensate for that, but that’s not the point of this ELI5).
So, if you somehow managed to print an image of something, and you could make it so that each eye sees a different one, then you would see in 3D.
Light filters have entered the chat.
When you look through a red glass/plastic, only red light goes through and all other colors appear black (including blue). When you look through a blue glass/plastic, of course, the blue goes through and the red is blocked.
So there you have it. Take two pictures that are slightly offset, reduce them to a grey scale, tint one of them in red, the other in blue, and you have a 3D image.
Red/blue 3D glasses work because they allow your eyes to see two different images at the same time. Each eye sees a different image, and your brain combines the two images to create the illusion of depth.
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