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Driving along in the car the other day, my four-year-old son asked why things that were closer to us were moving faster than those further away. What should I tell him?Milton Inverdale, London, UKThanks for a vast number of answers to this question, many of which were probably more suited to undergraduate level than to a four-year-old. However, one notable group of wags insisted on sidestepping the answer at all costs.Among these was the inevitable "Ask your mother", from Tony Turner of Tuross Head, New South Wales, Australia.Stephen McIntosh of Hull, UK, suggested: "You are far too intelligent for a four-year-old... have a lolly."More encouraging was the answer from Dave Oldham of Northampton, UK, who offered: "If you can ask a question like that at four years of age it won't be many more years before you can explain it to me."And congratulations to Peter Gosling of Farnham, Surrey, UK, for his unashamedly literal view of the world. His advice was: "I think you should tell your son that it is illegal for him to be driving at four years old." - Ed
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 Owen Gage says:
I would say it is due to how we actually see the world and how we think we see it.Our view of the world is fish-eyed, but we think we see directly ahead of eyes only. This means that we are squashing our vision more and more as it gets further away to keep it looking like it's directly ahead.To say it differently, we transform a trapezoid field of vision to a simple box in our minds, and to do it, the wide end of the trapezoid has to be shrunk.Owen GageUK
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posted on 2008-05-29 10:14:00 | Report abuse

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 Perspex says:
@ anonymous #5:You can design things to cancel out the perspective. A common example is the advertisements on sports fields - if you walk up to one they look distorted but from the viewpoint of the camera used for TV coverage they can look regular shapes or even 3d.
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posted on 2008-05-29 13:39:00 | Report abuse

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 Anonymous says:
take a piece of paper and draw a road with one object close to the road and one object far from the road. then draw a starting point on the road (point A) and a finishing point (point b). then draw straight lines from point A B towards the objects. you can explain that the object closer to the road appears to be moving faster because you have a greater angle, whereas the object furthest away has only a small angle. i could be wrong though?
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posted on 2008-05-29 16:57:00 | Report abuse

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 Zav1 says:
Field of view. Stuff closer to you will pass by at the same speed as stuff farther than you. But it is in your field of view for a shorter period of time, hence the impression that it is moving faster.
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posted on 2008-06-06 05:03:00 | Report abuse

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 Bluetooth Headsets says:
I think to a four-year child you hardly can explain him with the real inflation and geometrical angular theory. The best and logical part to explain must be by giving him a live example and prove him that Near objects seem to cover more ground than far objects.
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posted on 2008-06-19 10:23:00 | Report abuse

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