Monday 15 November 2010

A Distorted Notre Dame

On Thursday I showed you point zero, from where they measure all the distances to Paris. It is a plaque on the floor which is very close to the main door of Notre Dame. I am not showing you Notre Dame for this reason, but I want to show you converging verticals.

A standard lens on a camera tries to reproduce the way we see, but you can see from the photo on the left that Notre Dame looks like it is falling backwards. Our brain adapts the information it receives and tells us that it is upright. So I have adapted the building for you on the right.

If you were asked which of the two photos had been distorted then you may well choose the wrong one.

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