Talk:Necker cube/Archive 1

Necker Cube or Necker cube?
Which one is it? Downwards 04:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

According to Robert Penrose (in 'the Fantastic World of M.C.Escher'), the Necker Cube is what is being identified in this article as the 'impossible cube' ? It hardly seems likely we should be giving credit (naming rights) to a 20th century personality for the ambiguous wire diagrammed cube-- as if people had not noticed the ambiguity since antiquity? NO, Necker's contribution was the impossible cube! 68.42.58.175 11:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Emmalouise99 13:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC): The wire diagram is the (2D) Necker cube. A necker cube is a (usually) 2d representation of a 3d object that, in the absence of context can be interpreted as being oriented in more than one way. There exist 3d Necker cubes that, when viewed in rotation or when held, in the absence of stereoscopic cues, are also multistable (that is, reversals of the direction of rotation, or the orientation of the cube, are seen, seemingly at random). See http://www.journalofvision.org/2/7/675/. The impossible cube is not multi-stable, it is "zero stable" as there is no 3d object, in any orientation, that it represents. These should be separate articles.

Dubious claim
I disagree with the claim that the "other state" is the view "up from the bottom". The shape and orientation of the top and bottom squares are both unambiguous, the only oddity is the crossing beams. —Ben FrantzDale 03:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to be arguing about the impossible cube (with solid edges), but the article makes the claim in relation to the ambiguous Necker cube (the line drawing), and the claim seems justified to me.--Niels Ø (noe) 06:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You are right. Lesson: RTFA. —Ben FrantzDale 07:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Four ways of viewing it!
I can now see four ways of viewing the Necker cube. Two top views, a front view and a bottom view. The article only mentions two ways of viewing the cube. Alan Liefting 20:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I fail to see it more than two ways. Of the two corners that are "inside" the figure (i.e. inside when viewed as a planar figure), one is in front, and the other is behind. There are two possibilities, and that's it. Could you possibly describe what you see? - Of course, once you see the cube in one of these ways, you can mentally image moving around the cube (or rotate the cube) to see it more from any particular side, but that's not what we should be talking about here.--Niels Ø (noe) 21:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There are only two ways of viewing it; both of which can start from either a vertical or a horizontal viewpoint (bottom paralellogram & upper right sqare, or, top paralellogram & lower left square). Hence: four different ways to start two interpretations.

The picture (File2_necker_cubes.svg) used in the lemma "Ambiguity" doesn't work for me: I see both cubes as the same (either both top-down or both bottum-up at any one time) and I surmise that the blue beam that is positioned "in" the cube is of too dark a colour. Change to yellow? Sintermerte (talk) 00:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with Sintermerte (and not "alan liefting" who is simply attempting to be cute and impress that he believes he sees more than human-directions when sober). The effect is linear when implied with very dark colors on most LED monitors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.252.168 (talk) 05:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Dubious association
I don't see how the "impossible cube" is related to the Necker Cube, apart from both being cubes.--Exidor (talk) 18:37, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree; there used to be two articles, but they were merged a few years ago without any discussion. --Itub (talk) 17:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've split the impossible cube back into its own separate article. --Itub (talk) 04:01, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Left-to-right?
The fourth paragraph reads:

"With the cube on the left, most people see the lower-left face as being in front most of the time. This is possibly because people view objects from above, with the top side visible, far more often than from below, with the bottom visible, so the brain "prefers" the interpretation that the cube is viewed from above. Another reason behind this may be due to the brain's natural preference of viewing things from left to right, therefore seeing the leftmost square as being in front."

Is the last sentence accurate? Or is there a culturally-bound preference to view things from left-to-right if one's native (or perhaps "main") language uses a left-to-right script? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikinetman (talk • contribs) 08:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the last sentence is incorrect. I tried taking the image and flipping it horizontally in an image editor; my brain still prefers to see it from above, but now the rightmost square is in front. Either way it needs a published source or else should be removed. Lonelyplaneteer (talk) 06:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. Is there somebody from editors whose first language is written right-to-left? How do they see this cube? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.43.133.179 (talk) 17:22, 27 March 2019 (UTC)