Santa Cruz Evening News from Santa Cruz, California • Page 14

on ielieve All You Your lots of lies Eyes Tell Lines That Aren't What They Seem Can Be Handy When It Comes To Altering A Figure portly man looks more Impressive In a dark suit with dignified hair stripe, and why a short man should not wear wide lapels, broad-brimmed hats, bulky coats. These squares also help us to understand why a short, stout woman should not wear stripes that go round n' round; and why, if woman's ideal height is "the height of a man's heart," the too tall girl should not wear length- had they been made straight. And further, the axes of the columns are not vertical. They incline inwards nearly three inches, "to correct a common optical illusion of buildings seeming to lean inward. In modern skyscrapers, one of the worst problems architects had to deal with was the checkerboard and distorting effect of row on row of windows.

By grouping windows together in "peke" on a leash, because the contrast makes her look so much bigger. THESE same devices for fooling the eye are brought to our service in architecture and interior decoration. Give a room with a low ceiling, prominent panels, picture moldings and wall paper with horizontal stripes or motifs, and it becomes smaller 0 0 oOo 0 0 Figure No. 4 and stuffy looking. With vertical lines, which tend to raise the ceiling, it takes on a more pleasing atmosphere.

Give vertical lines to room with a woman who Is tall and thin should not wear upturned brims or jaunty Robin Hood quills. ENEMY curves in the hips look more deadly with conspicuous belts or peplums; a tall, slim figure looks like a "long drink" In clothes with marked vertical lines. Figure 2 proves these points. And believe It or not, the two vertical lines in Figure 3 are perfectly straight, but see how the radiating lines make them look as if they bulge! This shows what happens to the figure when you wear designs which by drapery or trimming suggest such lines. One more visual trick which has its practical application: In Figure 4, although the central circles are identical in size, they look unequal.

Surrounded by smaller forms, the circle looks larger; in the midst of bigger forms than Itself, the circle looks smaller. This gives you a canny illustration of the capricious effect of big and little accessories in dress. Big earrings, heavy bracelets, a jumbo-size purse dwarf a small, frail woman. And everybody knows how ludicrous is the picture of a large woman leading a cute little a high ceiling, and at once it becomes even loftier and colder, whereas horizontally striped draperies or wall paper, or wood or color paneling cutting the height of the soaring walls, will bring the ceiling down and create a cozy feeling. Volumes have been written on the line magic with which the eye fools us.

See In Figure 5 how a simple arrangement of angles makes the circle look distorted, just as the perfectly straight lines appeared bent in Figure 3. The classic example of how architects use the principle of optical Illusion is the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. GREEK architects discovered that tall columns, if straight, look as If they are thinner in the middle. So they made the majestic columns of the Parthenon bulge outward in the center to compensate for the eye's error. Also, the long lines of the architrave, the beams surmounting the columns, have a curvature of several inches to make them look straight.

They would look sagged, ciation with the familiar, tells the eye what to see. However, let's not go psychological, let's consider only how these mystifying optical illusions have their practical application In every-day life. Take clothes, for instance. Most of us now know, thanks to the educational work of fashion advisers, that if short, stout people wear clothes with vertical stripes or pronounced vertical lines they appear taller and slimmer than they are. And that a too tall, lanky gal, in a dress with crosswise stripes or predominantly horizontal motifs, like ruffles, seems less tall and therefore more gracefully proportioned.

Why? Just another optical Illusion. Make a series of vertical and horizontal lines to fill perfe squares and see how the squares appear to lose their squareness. The one with the ver- ft By Lenore D. Young SO YOU really think "seeing is believing?" Don't fool yourself. The eye lies and lies and oh, how it lies! You know, of course, how your eye fools you when railroad tracks seem to meet; when trees and telegraph poles seem to merge.

into a wall as they pass your window in a speeding train; Figure No. 1 when the sky seems blue, though space is colorless. But some of the queerest tricks the eye plays us is when It tries to tell us that straight lines are bent lines of the same length are not the same length-circles are distorted squares are not squares. For example, take Figure 1. Quickly which line is longer? Now measure the two lines and see how your eye has deceived you.

Yea, both lines are the same. OPTICAL illusions are not easy to explain. Seeing things as they "ain't," the psychologists tell us, la due in some cases to the optical mechanism of the eye; and In others it is due to our own visual sense, which, through asso lrDear Boss: Figure No. 3 wise lines. Take a glance at Figure 2, and you will realize why a short, stout woman should not wear "mushroom" hats, and why ABOUT If It seems that to be a scientist you have to be a good shot, and why some of these radium makers don't get jobs in the circus is more than I can explain.

Your puzzled, ai lard Company, nc P. LoSth Street, Amy: November i no aJ 14 Figure No. 5 strategic spacings, they contrived the soaring, column-like effects they needed. Indeed they have developed many ingenious devices to carry the eye upward in straight, sweeping lines by fooling the eye with its own visual illusions. A r.

WilluJ In. Xi 'P DEAR BOSS: About this science business you were so curious about, well, it seems that things are moving very fast and particularly so in these colleges and schools up and down this Pacific Coast, and before long we will be able to turn in a pair of old shoes and get back a gold wrist watch, as I understand it, only there is a catch in it as yet, and I will tell you what it is. So far as I can make out and of course these scientists, doctors, and are very stubborn about telling you anything, and especially so in English or any other language Tifvvf York Clty 6 Gentle- -MVfts. A nil Sen he takes by DU haven VAas rea time no I e'lrA for GOLDS. he jasj 6ne on nraxis game.

anybody could understand if he knew any other language; well, anyway, these scientists need some practice In this presto-chango business, and right now they are practicing on radium. What they actually do is more or less a mystery to one and all, viv "brother apomed too OTie of the fflS 6 forever fSe eroP toccos. AJ I cool as my diting Durnt as slo 9tingiS rtt. me Wette or Flgure No. 2 tical lines seems higher than the width; the one with the horizontal lines seems stubbier than the height.

So you can see why a short, atom is, it is a very small piece of something, so little that not even a microscope can see it, and this nucleus, as it turns out, is nothing more or less than a little island in the middle of same, and this scientist drew a picture of it, only greatly enlarged, of course, and I said: "But, If nobody has even seen one, how do you know it looks like that?" And he answered, "Don't be Irrevelant," or something of the kind, which I judged by the tone of his voice meant he didn't know either. But I let it go. Well, it seems that after this Dr. Livingood has been hitting this bismuth with these nuclei, if any, for a while, then all of a sudden the first thing he knows it is not bismuth any more, but radium. So I said, "You mean It isn't worth anything?" and he said, "No, not very much, not nearly as much as it costs to make it," and I said: "Well, then, what does he do it for?" And he said it was scientific research, as if that settled everything, but I wasn't going to be put off that way, so I said: "But why doesn't he do something useful, such as put a piece of wood in this machine and fire at it until it turns into a pair of chiffon stockings, or But he put that look on his face like a man teaching a dog to jump over a stick, and remarked something about progress being slow and painful, and and tHis was science, not magic, but it seemed like foolishness to me and I said so.

And then I said: "It stands to reason this man is silly anyway, and you know if he really can hit a little piece of bismuth with these nuclei, like he says, why he would not be fooling around in any laboratory." Well, I knew I had him with that, and I guess he knew it, too, because he just put on a highbrow look, sniffed and departed. Your practical, AMY PORTER. DouDle-lellt Snapshot of Jerry Huriey taken last Fall by his brother John. Jerry's farm is located on a mountainside, 8 miles from Wellsville, N. Y.

(Post Office, Scio.) leave that otne My yours truly jerry Hurley old niece, Betty, 16 TtoliV he-' Ts fatner. 1 -s 'Cc- 3 Made from PRIZE CROP TOBACCOS but I have been Investigating here and there, such as this California Institute of Technology and the University of California, and and I find that they have been making a kind of radium, only a different kind in each place, with Dr. Charles C. Lauritsen doing it In one place and Dr. J.

J. Livin-good In the other; well, anyway, they make this radium by shooting at something else with a rifle. Of course this is not a regular rifle, such as is used to shoot animals, targets, the enemy, and but la more like a machine gun only a amall one, and if I had not met this scientist in Berkeley I would not know any more than you do about It, but he explained it to me as follows: "You see, Dr. Llvlngood, who performs the experiment you seem to be trying to describe, proceeds thus: he takes a small piece of bismuth and bombards It with nuclei and it turns to radium 'E'." So, wishing above all things to be accurate, as you have so often told me, I asked like this: "What is a nuclei?" And he replied, "Why a nucleus is the center of an atom." Mow, boss, you know what an DOUBLE. MONEY-BACK OFFER as made to smokers since Oct 6, 1935 TAKE a sporting chance on a pack of Doutle-Mellow Old Colds.

Smoke ten of the cigarette. If you don't ajr they're the finest you've ever tasted, mail the package wrapper and the remaining ten cigarettes to us, any timey before May 1st, 1936, and we'll send you double the price you paid for the full package, puj postage. (Established 1760) U9 West 40th Street, New York City PAGE FOUR.