I was reading this [newspaper article about a hovering ship](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/05/ship-hovering-above-sea-cornwall-optical-illusion?)
While I understand how the brain is fooled, why is a camera?
In: Earth Science
Nobody is getting fooled: it’s just that light isn’t taking a straight path from the ship to your brain. If you ever seen those fun-house mirrors that make you look wildly out of proportion that’s a very similar idea. Our brain isn’t “fooled” to think that the funhouse mirror is making our proportions wrong, it’s that the mirror really is distorting the image we see. Same here: our brain isn’t “misinterpreting” anything, it’s that the atmosphere is distorting the light coming from the ship making it appear like it’s in the wrong spot.
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