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One time, going to band camp, I noticed the wheels of the car driving beside me. The spokes of its rims appeared to almost stand still, and move very slowly. The wheels were spinning at a speed that made a strobe-like visual effect. We were on the open highway, in broad daylight.
What's curious
is that sunlight is a constant stream of light, which reaches the earth without pulsating. (It is more like an incandescent light bulb, than a flourescent light bulb.) I had to conclude that sunlight could not create the perception of visual resonance on the spinning wheel. It had to be some sort of internal frequency in my own physiological makeup, somewhere between my eyeballs and my conscious perception. A simple explanation is that all of our nervous systems operate at particular frequencies like residential appliances, running on 60 hertz electrical power.
This wouldn't really be a big deal if everyone's internal frequency is roughly the same. But, if they aren't, it would be interesting to find out what the range of frequencies is in humans. In doing this, we may discover that certain characteristics are associated with people running at a particular frequency. Further, we may find ways to regulate or adjust someone's internal frequency with electrolytes, or with certain foods. I'd like to know if I can run at the same frequency as Albert Einstein or Peja Stojakovic.
The thing is, I've never taken the time to do an experiment that would prove that people run at different internal frequencies. But, it would be as easy as riding in a car with two or three other people, on a highway in broad daylight, next to another car that has solid rims with large holes in them. When the other car's wheels began strobing, each person would observe and report the number of complete revolutions made by the resonating image of the same wheel, in the same period of time (like five minutes). If anyone reported a different number consistently, it would indicate that such a frequency exists.
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Annotation:
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The resolving time of the human eye has more to do with the time it takes the rods and cones in your retina to recover after being struck by a photon than some "internal frequency." |
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I once knew a man who spoke in a perfect A flat minor. |
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Did he work in advertising? He may well be a perfect pitch man. |
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The effect you saw is like a strobe. The sunlight is constant, but the light reflected off the rims is not. The illusion of seeming still is because you were seeing the light as it was reflected exactly as the shinny rim passed a certain point, thus the illusion of slow motion. I find this is very common with some of the newer and larger rims with gratuitous chrome. |
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While our nervous systems do have a frequncy of sorts this has nothing to do with what you observed. |
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A better test would be to have everyone in a room by themselves. Before them is a spinning wheel that they control the rotational speed of the wheel. They speed up or slow down the wheel until it appears to be standing still. The rpm of the wheel would determine what their internal frequency is. |
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BTW, all lighting powered by AC voltage is going to have some pulsations in it because the voltage supplying the light is pulsing. An incandescant is not as noticable because the heating and cooling of the filament is going to dampen the change, but there will be some fluctioation. |
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Even before I was driving on my own, as my mom and I would be driving about town, I would notice that no other car on the road had the same blinker timing as our car. I FINALLY found, after numerous years that the 97 Ford Ranger I drove had the same blinker timing as another larger model truck manufactured by a different comapany ... but it was just that one truck. Others of similar make, model and year were off ... since then I have never seen another vehicle's blinker timing on with mine. Just one in my whole life ... |
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Hmm...bluetooth blinker sync. For those desiring a high degree of structure and order in their lives. |
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<Of Topic>Good techno idea [half]. I would rather it worked on hormones, though, so that all commuter's cars on the same route 'came out in sympathy'. That way, you could recognise the commuter's cars who were familiar with the route and could, *just possibly*, be more aware of the dangers and give a bit more consideration.</OT> |
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Seems easier to have a quartz crystal based blinker. They may be flashing at a different phase, but all would blink at the same frequency. |
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Agreed [World], but now you are spoiling the fun of developing 'sniffing cars'. |
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If not in phase, the blinking in a line of cars would appear fairly random. Not orderly enough. Nope, not at all. Too little structure. That'll never do. Can someone tell me where I can wash my hands again, please? |
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It would also be kind of cool for cars to know their position in queue and respond to sync commands from the lead car. This way, with proper delays, patterns could be sequenced down the line of cars. Especially effective at night. The lead car could pick up it's signal from a transmitter at the interesection so a different pattern would appear at each intersection. |
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OK, [Kitchensink], you can have your idea back now. |
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Thank you [half], and don't get me started about traffic. Please no. |
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I have an interesting theory about gravity, though. |
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I think this follows the same logic: |
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Films (think old fashioned; not digital, nor video) are typically recorded at 24 frames per second. The frames appear to remain at a constant vertical position.
I must conclude that every person that can sit through a film in a theater must have an internal frequency of 24 Hz, or some multiple. |
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Oh, and isn’t this a theory? |
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Presumably then the shiny wheel stationary effect must generate exactly apparently stationary wheels, not ones that rotate slowly, unless the cars are moving relative to each other (thus changing the angle of maximum shininess). |
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