Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Persistance of Motion and the Zoetrope
There were very basic moving picture devices in existence decades before the creation of Edison's and the Lumière brothers' creations. The zoetrope, while completely rudimentary, is the earliest example of an optical illusion that would give way to motion pictures. This device relied on the optical illusion "persistence of motion" that seemingly creates a moving picture when a series of photographs taken in succession are spun at a quick speed. Click HERE to learn more about the Zoetrope.
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The Zoetrope is awesome if for no other reason that it is a cool name. It is pretty neat to think that an optical illusion started us off on the path that is now movies as we know them today. Zoetropes seem like they served no other purposed than for entertainment. Not that it is a bad thing, it’s just that TV and movies do so much more now.
ReplyDeleteThis is a cool find. I have never heard of such a device but there it is. The field of optics has certainly taken a bold leap since then. The use of HD and blueray tech is a far cry from the Zoetrope.
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing that this technology and later film, was inspired and/or made possible by the biological mechanics of the human eye. This is a great example of a symbiotic relationship between technology and biology.
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