Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The Mephisto Spiral; a piece of spiral, actually two halves,
which are threaded left and right handed;
put together and it appears as though they're coming apart, or going together.
When you give it to people to try they will hold it in the wrong way and despite their
best efforts they won't make it work.
It's quite tricky to learn the little bit of handling to make it work.
But when they do eventually succeed in doing so, they'll be baffled as to why it's not
actually coming apart, and it really isn't.
It looks as though it is but it's not.
So there's a double trick going on here; optical illusion and a handling, and a skill thing.
That's the small version of the Mephisto Spiral and here's a much larger version, and they
both work extremely well.
This one, just to convince you that it's not moving at all is there's a weld point just
here and here, so the thing really isn't coming apart, but it jolly well looks as though it
is doesn't it?
So both of them work extremely well in between the hands of a skilled person who's learnt
how to do it.
It's quite a technique to learn. The Mephisto Spiral, a nice optical illusion.