Experiments in Persistence of Vision

Experimentation with “Persistence of Vision” devices 1830‘s by European scientists were the first organized attempts to create moving pictures. Joseph Plateau’s “Phenakitoscope” utilized drawings on a spinning disk to give the illusion of motion. Plateau discovered that 16 frames per second were required to convince the brain that it was viewing a single image in motion. Similar devices were created by the Austrian Simon Ritter von Stampfer “Stroboskope”, and Englishman William Horner (“Zoëtrope” 1834).

In 1853, the German Baron Franz von Uchatius experimented with projecting images from a Phenakitoscope-type device using a “magic lantern”.