Illusion of wheels going in reverse?

Question

On veh. commercials, what gives the illusion of the hubcaps going in reverse when the veh is going forward, is it a certain speed?

Answer 1

On television, the film is shot at a certain frame rate. There is motion between frames that is not captured on film, so if the wheel is rotating fast enough, what is actually an advance in one direction of the wheel appears to be a reverse motion. This is more apparent on wheels with large voids between spokes.

A similar condition can be witnessed on the freeway at night under street lights. I don't know if you're familiar with AC power; even though you see continuous lighting, most AC bulbs turn on and off very rapidly, at 60 cycles per second (60 Hz). The light reflects off of the wheels at the same rate, giving the appearance of slow or reverse rotation because of motion unseen between cycles.

Hope my blabbery helped. ;-)

Answer 2

i have seen this same phenomena on wheels on cars going by in real life. i have often wondered the same thing, it must have something to do with the way our brain analyzes the vision of a fast moving shiny object like a car wheel..

Answer 3

It has to do with the number of frames per second in the film and the way your eyes work.

Here's a simple article on why it happens.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n8_v17/ai_18471030

Answer 4

complicated aspect. search from google. it may help!