The effect is also observable with propellors in sunlight, much easier I think than with the fan on a jet. Turboprops are best as they gradually build up speed from zero much more evenly than a piston engine.
I’ve looked carefully at propellors in sunlight. Nothing! No strobe effect. There is however an unmoving “shadow” in the blurred disk of the moving propellor. This exists because the propellor blade reflects ambient light differently in each part of it’s rotation. (Sometimes the shadow is a bright stripe if the blade catches the sun just right.) But this “shadow” doesn’t move forward or backward constantly. It DOES appear to move if your viewing angle changes, for example as the plane moves by you, or as it turns while taxiing.
Also, I’ve seen highlights in hubcaps which appear to move. Again, this is the same “shadow” as in the propellor blades above. It doesn’t move if you drive alongside the moving wheel. It does appear to move if the wheel is going past you (if your viewing angle is changing.)
So, next time you see backwards-moving wagon wheels and aircraft propellors in your environment, it obviously means that you’re TRAPPED INSIDE A MOVIE!!! Therefore you can do ANYTHING you want, especially if you’re inside a Hollywood style flick. Try leaping from a tall building and see if you automatically land in a passing garbage truck or canvas awning. Try firing your revolver and see if it contains an unlimited number of bullets rather than only six!
Unless, as Cecil points out there’s a light source that, itself, is periodic, nearby. Like a flourescent lamp.
Thank you for confirming this bbeaty. It kept me awake most of the night, and in the end I came to the conclusion that the only times I have seen the retrograde rotatioon in propellers was when flying in the late afternoon, when a lot of the airport is bathed in 100Hz light.
For a long time I had this wacky idea that the finite speed of light would give rise to different patters at higher RPMs (A bit like Michelsons measurement of the speed of light). However, that effect would be negligible at normal speed. In the end I’d rather deny the effect altogether!