Science Projects And Inventions

YOU NEED:

• A party mask
• Paint
• A lamp or any other source of light

Scare the wits out of your friend. Use the Party Mask to create a scary optical illusion. Use crayons, water colours or other hues of paints to colour lips red, cheeks pink, and eyes blue. Darken the eyebrows. Hang the mask on the wall, painted side out. Direct light at it, from a lamp placed below. Step away a few yards. It will look like a normal face rather than one turned inside out. Now make a sideways movement. Horror of horrors! The face will sway from side to side as you move. It always face you seeming to turn.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

This one is the most eerie of all optical illusions. The light from the lamp placed below is not necessary, but it helps to strengthen the convexity of the mask. The  effect is that it creates shadows which would normally be seen on a real face when light comes from the above. This is because one never views a human face turned inside out as is the case of the mask. It is next to impossible to see the mask as anything other than a normal convex face. For instance take the nose of a normal face. Once you move towards the right, you will view the left side of the Nose. But in the case of the mask which has been turned inside out, in the event of moving to the right you will see the other side of the nose. The feeling seems to be that the face is rotating.