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The image

So I happened to capture this really cool picture of a desktop screen taken through a mobile phone camera. I hope you can see those stripe-like patterns which have appeared in the photograph, but weren't there on the desktop screen. They have a striking resemblance to a hyperbola. They also appear to move and take different shapes as I move the mobile phone along the screen. I am really curious to know what is going on here..is this some sort of optical illusion? Why can't we see these weird patterns through out naked eyes?

Qmechanic
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Ambica Govind
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1 Answers1

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This is called a Moiré pattern and is forms when two repeating patterns (here, the pixels of the screen and of the camera) almost, but don't quite, line up. It's related to interference and to aliasing, if those concepts happen to be more familiar. I can't say why they take on a hyperbolic pattern here, but I'm sure it's a product of the mathematics of two angled, rectangular patterns interfering.

Wikipedia has more information and illustrations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern

Kristoffer Sjöö
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