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An impossible object is an object that cannot exist according to the known laws of nature, but has a description or representation suggesting, at first sight, that it can.

Drawings of objects that cannot exist are also called "undecidable figures". The undecidability of these figures invariably rests on them being interpreted as two-dimensional projections of what would be an impossible higher-dimensional object. Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd is the "father of impossible figures". He was the first to deliberately design many impossible figures. Dutch artist M. C. Escher is notable for many drawings featuring undecidable figures, sometimes with the entire drawing being an undecidable figure.

Notable examples Edit

Notable undecidable figures include:

• impossible cube
• Penrose stairs
• Penrose triangle
• blivet (or devil's pitchfork)

In fiction Edit

• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "I, Borg", a plan was made to destroy the entire race of Borg – malevolent cybernetic aliens whose minds were interconnected – by showing one of the borg a picture of a highly-complex impossible object. This image would be transmitted back to the Borg hive, overloading its consciousness in larger and larger attempts to understand the image. This plan was dismissed as being genocide, so its potential results were never seen.

References Edit

• Mathematical Circus, Martin Gardner 1979 ISBN 0-14-02-2355-X (Chapter 1 – Optical Illusions)
• Escher's Belvedere

See also Edit

• optical illusion
• paradox
• puzzle
• puzzling object
• unobtainium

External links Edit

• Art of Reutersvard
• Things Impossible at cut-the-knot
• Impossible Objects
• Impossible figure (Englisch)de:Unmögliche Figur

fr:Objet impossiblenl:Onmogelijk figuur