10 Mind Melting Illusions (And Exactly How They Work)

1. The Ambiguous Cylinder

This one was blowing the collective hivemind of the internet not too long ago, so how do you get a shape that is both a square and a circle without literally using a haunted mirror?

Well the answer is that it's not a square or a circle, but a "Hybrid-Squircle", with the top edges of the cylinder bending in different directions. One pair of perpendicular edges arch upwards, and the other pair arch downwards. Viewed from different angles, the different sides "correct" different aspects of the squircle into either a square or a circle, with the different levels blending into one another to create the illusion of a smooth, continuous line.

You can catch a glimpse of the true shape at around 0:24 seconds in the video above. Alternatively just watch this video by a guy who reverse engineered it and produced the same shape with a 3D printer.

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