ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Visual angle illusion

Have you ever noticed that when you look at stars in the sky, they seem really tiny, but if you look at a big building that's far away, it also looks small? That's because of something called visual angle illusion.

Visual angle is how much of what we see takes up space in our eyes. For example, if you hold up your hand right in front of your face, it takes up a bigger visual angle than if you hold it far away.

When we look at objects, our brains use visual angles to help us understand their size and distance. But sometimes our brains can get confused, and make things look bigger or smaller than they really are.

One example is the Moon illusion - when the Moon is close to the horizon, it looks much bigger than when it's up in the sky. This is because our brains compare the Moon to the other objects around it, like trees and buildings, and make it look bigger than it actually is.

Another example is the Ponzo illusion - two lines that are the same length can look different because of the shapes around them. If the lines are placed between two converging lines that make them look farther away, our brain thinks they must be bigger to look that way in the distance.

So, visual angle illusion is when our brains play tricks on us and make things look bigger or smaller than they really are because of how our eyes see them. It's a fun reminder that our brains can sometimes be fooled!