Scientific Reasons Behind Some of The Internet’s Strangest Optical Illusions

Remember that online debacle over a certain dress that some people saw as blue and black while others thought it was white and gold?

Well, it turns out that optical illusions aren’t as rare as one might think and scientists have weighed in on the causes of some the internet’s strangest optical illusions and why people perceive colors differently.

Artwork, including paintings and photographs, have been baffling optical illusions for centuries, and while most of these illusions originated on the Internet, scientists looked back to some of the older illusions for their research.

Billie Eilish Bought a Pair of Mint Green Shoes

Singer Billie Eilish recently went on Instagram to show off her mint green shoes and a problem that she had with them.

Even though she saw the shoes to be mint green, her dad gave her a compliment on her “pink and white shoes.” So, of course, she was baffled and wondered if her father was actually colorblind.

She Swore The Shoes Were Green

In other photographs, the shoes looked like they had a mint green hue, but that wasn’t enough to stop people from believing that the shoes were actually a shade of pink.

And the illusion was evident in multiple photographs and in real life, so it couldn’t have just been the lighting or a once in a lifetime fluke.

In Photos, They Looked Pink and White

In close up photographs of the shoes it was genuinely difficult to tell whether or not the singer was lying about the shoe’s color. Many fans saw them to be mint green while others could swear that they saw the shoes as pink.

And Eilish knew that there was one way to settle this debate once and for all, even if it would anger her fans.

Nike Settled the Debate

The official listing for the shoes on Nike’s website included the words “mint green,” so there was no use arguing that the sneakers weren’t a shade of green.

To further simplify matters, Eilish herself pointed out that Nike didn’t even sell a pink version of the shoes, so there’s no way that she could have gotten a different pair by mistake. So, how did so many people think that the shoes were actually pink?