Tuesday 22 November 2011

Separated at birth

US American film actor George Clooney and Turkish President Abdullah Gül:

6 comments:

James Higham said...

Who's the better actor?

dearieme said...

Which is which?

Nigel Sedgwick said...

Interestingly close, and this sort of thing must be a real problem for (amongst other things) biometric face recognition.

But check out the ears!

Decades ago, I read somewhere that this was an very important and not too difficult way of checking on identification (and also, sometimes, on genetic relationship). Was it Sherlock Holmes? -- I cannot remember.

Best regards

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, I don't know.

D, Clooney above, Gül below.

NS, C is looking down slightly and G is looking up, which might exaggerate the apparent difference between their ears.

Nigel Sedgwick said...

@Mark: I noticed the photo/head alignment issue before commenting, and so avoided thinking the Turkish President has low-slung ears (which could be determined, or not, by a side view annotated with respect to the forehead/chin line).

Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_clooney and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_G%C3%BCl are convenient three-quarter view photos of both guys, showing their ears (pinnae) are distinctly different (in aspect ratio and detailed shape).

There are other differences between our sets of photos, most likely significantly affected by weight changes in the subjects and illumination (to say nothing of facial hair). Ear lobe shape is less variable under such changes.

Best regards

Mark Wadsworth said...

NS, good detective work! Ears are of course as varied as faces, as I know from staring at photos of people when I'm drawing caricatures. Some people's ears look positively deranged.