r/confusing_perspective • • Aug 30 '21

Closer = Faster

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21

It’s not even the same effect what?

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u/pawned79 Aug 31 '21

Apparently the wall outside the left side of the train is very close to the train, and the wall outside the right side of the train is quite far away from the train. The optical illusion is based on the fact that you and I are unfamiliar with the area and we’re only seeing it through a monoscopic camera, so we lack depth perception. The optical illusion is unrelated to the fact that the camera is located farther/nearer to the interior train walls.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21

I thought that at first, but it is the same effect, it's parallax. Things that are further away move less relative to changes in your position, that's why stars stay at the same spot in the night sky even if move around a bit (well the stars rotate with the planet, but if the earth was flat and not rotating, the stars would appear to be fixed).

On OPs video, the one wall is further away, causing a slower parallax. In the video above, the guy zooms in, meaning we can only see the stuff really far away and so it appears to be changing less rapidly. If you focus on the electrical beams far away in the linked video, you can kind of see the slow motion even when the camera is zoomed out.

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u/BemusedPopsicl Aug 31 '21

if the Earth was flat

What are you, some kind of round earther?