This Optical Illusion With Toy Train Tracks Will Make You Do A Double Take

There are things that crop up on the Internet every now and then, which could easily lead a person to believe magic is 100 percent real.

Such is the case with a couple of toy train tracks that will make your brain do back flips to figure out. Twitter user MarcSettle posted a bizarre video on Wednesday of two train tracks that look mismatched one moment and identical the next.

Within 12 hours of posting it, the video got 1,000 retweets because people were freaking. The F*ck. Out.

You know Marc isn't just trying to mess with us either, given video's caption:

My toddler's train track is freaking me out right now. What is going on here?!

But really, what the hell is going on here? Apparently, the answer has to do with a discovery made by a 19th century psychologist.

In a brain-frying effect called the Jastrow Illusion, the disparity in sizes has to do with perspective. While the two pieces of the train track are, in fact, the exact same size, they don't appear to be when placed side by side because of the curved shape.

When you think about it in that way, the optical illusion totally makes sense. Still, that doesn't make the video any less mesmerizing to watch.

Citations: This bizarre train track optical illusion will mess with your mind (Mashable)