ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Let’s get immersed in a high-tech virtual world with five fascinating fast facts about virtual reality, an interview with Dr Vanessa Moss, an astrophysicist who uses virtual reality to collaborate with other scientists, and an eye-opening binocular activity for you to try yourself at home.
Written, presented, and produced by Jenny Lynch.
Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
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Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
04:05 Interview with Dr Vanessa Moss
10:33 Dominant eye activity
Virtual science exhibition, The Future of Meetings TFOMxCSIRO Exhibition Hall
NOTE: This virtual space uses quite a lot of data (100MB). The space is compatible with Safari, Chrome and Edge browsers (partial support for Firefox). It is also accessible via the Spatial.io phone app or Oculus Quest 2 (VR).
Dominant eye activity instructions:
The hand you use for writing is your ‘dominant hand’ and most of us are either left-hand dominant or right-hand dominant. A few people are ambidextrous, which means they can use one hand just as easily as the other.
Did you know that you probably have a dominant eye as well as a dominant hand?
Follow these steps to test which is your dominant eye.
- Stretch your arms out in front of you and use your fingers and thumbs to make a triangle shape that you can see through.
- Focus on an object in the distance and keep staring at it.
- Keep your arms stretched out, but slide your hands together to make the triangle smaller, while still looking at the distant object.
- Keep looking at the object, and close one of your eyes.
If you can still see the object, the eye that is still open is your dominant eye.
If you can’t close one eye at a time by winking, try asking someone to help you by carefully covering one of your eyes with their hand.
- If you can’t see the object, switch eyes, so the other eye is closed.
If you can now see the object with your open eye, then this is your dominant eye.
If it didn’t work, try again, or maybe you are one of the few people who does not have a dominant eye.
As well as testing for your dominant eye, this activity demonstrates how each of your eyes sees a slightly different picture of your surroundings. Virtual reality relies on this binocular vision to create realistic images of three-dimensional worlds.
