Comment by do_not_redeem

This optical illusion isn't some brand new thing. It's been widely known since I was a child, and surely hundreds of years before that.

The laser system results in a stronger perceptual effect than you get from the illusion alone. We didn't have the technology to build it until recently. I'm certain the people who built it knew about the illusion, and it's probably what inspired the experiment in the first place.