The moon illusion - Andrew Vanden Heuvel
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-moon-illusion-andrew-vanden-heuvel Have you noticed how the full moon looks bigger on the horizon than high ...
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Have you ever noticed how the full moon looks bigger when it's near the horizon than when it's high over head? If so, you're not alone. People have wondered about this strange effect since ancient times, and surprisingly, we still don't have a great explanation, but that's not for lack of trying. Some of the greatest minds in history - Aristotle, Ptolemy, Da Vinci, Decartes - have all wrestled with this problem and failed to generate an adequate explanation. One of the first ideas suggested was that the image of the moon in the sky really is bigger near the horizon. Perhaps the Earth's atmosphere acts like a giant lens, magnifying the moon as it rises and sets. But this explanation doesn't cut it. If anything, the refraction of the atmosphere would...
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Have you ever noticed how the full moon looks bigger when it's near the horizon than when it's high over head? If so, you're not alone. People have wondered about this strange effect since ancient times, and surprisingly, we still don't have a great explanation, but that's not for lack of trying. Some of the greatest minds in history - Aristotle, Ptolemy, Da Vinci, Decartes - have all wrestled with this problem and failed to generate an adequate explanation. One of the first ideas suggested was that the image of the moon in the sky really is bigger near the horizon. Perhaps the Earth's atmosphere acts like a giant lens, magnifying the moon as it rises and sets. But this explanation doesn't cut it. If anything, the refraction of the atmosphere would...
