These Pictures Are the Same—Wait, What?

Take a moment and let this one sink in. It sure seems like the photographer turned a bit to the left before snapping the right-hand image. It's the lines in the cobblestones — they're all tilted in the second image compared to the first. A second glance reveals some irregularities, though. Though the lines look tilted relative to each other, the rest of the image looks unchanged. The trucks are in the same place, we see the same patch of sky, and if you look closely, we see the same exact cobblestones in each. These two images are totally identical. It's an optical illusion, and like so many of its kind, it relies on perspective to warp our minds. The culprit here seems to be those lines. Because the picture was taken at an angle, they appear to grow less angled as we move left to right. Seen in just ...