Stories by Jearl Walker

What explains subjective-contour illusions, those bright spots that are not really there?

How to capture on film the faint glow emitted when sticky tape is peeled off a surface

Fluid interfaces, including fractal flows, can be studied in a Hele-Shaw cell

Now there is Rubik's Magic, a new puzzle that provides a study in permutation operators

Sticky threadlike substances that tend to draw themselves out into bead arrays

Music and ammonia vapor excite the color pattern of a soap film

Why a fluid flows faster when the tube is pinched

Puzzles in two and three dimensions, and ways to simplify their solution

Concerning disappearances, including the Cheshire cat's odd vanishing act

Making a barometer that works with water in place of mercury

Calculating the distance to the sun by observing the trail of a meteor

The secret of a microwave oven's rapid cooking action is disclosed

Reflections from a water surface display some curious properties

Methods for going through a maze without becoming lost or confused

The hyperscope and the pseudoscope aid experimen ts on three-dimensional vision

Cracks in a surface look intricately random but actually develop rather systematically

Rainbow holograms, unlike conventional ones, can be observed in ordinary light

Retracing the steps by which aluminum metal was initially purified back in 1886

Exotic patterns appear in water when it is freezing or melting

Mirrors make a maze so bewildering that the explorer must rely on a map

Wire that "remembers" its shape is put to work running an engine

Wonders with the retroreflector, a mirror that removes distortion from a light beam

Methods and optics of perceiving color in a black-and-white grating

A homemade device for testing particle scattering; experiments in zero gravity