The électrotachyscope is an 1887 invention of Ottomar Anschütz

Ottomar Anschütz

Ottomar Anschütz was an inventor, photographer, and chronophotographer.-Biography:He invented 1/1000 of a second shutter, and the "electrotachyscope" in 1887...

 of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 which presents the illusion

Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....

 of motion

Motion (physics)

In physics, motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time. Change in action is the result of an unbalanced force. Motion is typically described in terms of velocity, acceleration, displacement and time . An object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force, as...

 with transparent serial photographs, chronophotographs

Chronophotography

Chronophotography is an antique photographic technique from the Victorian era , which captures movement in several frames of print. These prints can be subsequently arranged either like animation cels or layered in a single frame...

, arranged on a spinning wheel of fortune

The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a concept in medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna, who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel - some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls...

 or mandala

Mandala

Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...

-like glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

 disc, significant as a technological

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

 development in the history of cinema.

A Geissler Tube

Geissler tube

A Geissler tube is an early gas discharge tube used to demonstrate the principles of electrical glow discharge. The tube was invented by the German physicist and glassblower Heinrich Geissler in 1857...

 was used to flash light through the transparencies

Transparency (projection)

A transparency, also known in industrial settings as a "viewfoil" or "foil", is a thin sheet of transparent flexible material, typically cellulose acetate, onto which figures can be drawn. These are then placed on an overhead projector for display to an audience...

 to provide a weak projection to a single person or small audience through a small window.

It was first publicly demonstrated at the Chicago World's Fair

World's Columbian Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...

 of 1893.

An earlier, related device is described in the January 24, 1878 issue of the journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 Nature.

See also

• Episcotister
• Flip book
  Flip book
  A flip book or flick book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be...
  
  
• Phenakistoscope
  Phenakistoscope
  The phenakistoscope was an early animation device that used the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion.-History:...
  
  
• Praxinoscope
  Praxinoscope
  The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder...
  
  
• Strobe light
  Strobe light
  A strobe light or stroboscopic lamp, commonly called a strobe, is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. It is one of a number of devices that can be used as a stroboscope...
  
  
• Tachometer
  Tachometer
  A tachometer is an instrument measuring the rotation speed of a shaft or disk, as in a motor or other machine. The device usually displays the revolutions per minute on a calibrated analogue dial, but digital displays are increasingly common...
  
  
• Thaumatrope
  Thaumatrope
  A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian times.A disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision.The invention of...
  
  
• Zoetrope
  Zoetrope
  A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words "ζωή – zoe", "life" and τρόπος – tropos, "turn". It may be taken to mean "wheel of life"....
  
  
• Zoopraxiscope
  Zoopraxiscope
  The zoopraxiscope is an early device for displaying motion pictures. Created by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879, it may be considered the first movie projector. The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The...
  
  

Sources

• Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
• Deac Rossell, The Electrical Wonder
• Burns, Paul The History of the Discovery of Cinematography An Illustrated Chronology
• Fielding, Raymond, 1967, A Technological History of Motion Pictures and Television.