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The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope) was an early animation
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
 device, the predecessor of the zoetrope
Zoetrope

A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides....
. It was invented in 1831 simultaneously by the Belgian
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
 Joseph Plateau
Joseph Plateau

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau was a Belgium physicist.Born in Brussels, he studied at the University of Li?ge , where he graduated as a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences in 1829....
 and the Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
n Simon von Stampfer.

One variant of the phenakistoscope was a spinning disc mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc a series of pictures was drawn corresponding to frames
Film frame

A film frame, or just frame, is one of the many single photographys in a film. The individual frames are separated by frame lines. Normally, 24 frames are needed for one second of film....
 of the animation; around its circumference was a series of radial slits.






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The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope) was an early animation
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
 device, the predecessor of the zoetrope
Zoetrope

A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides....
. It was invented in 1831 simultaneously by the Belgian
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
 Joseph Plateau
Joseph Plateau

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau was a Belgium physicist.Born in Brussels, he studied at the University of Li?ge , where he graduated as a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences in 1829....
 and the Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
n Simon von Stampfer.

One variant of the phenakistoscope was a spinning disc mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc a series of pictures was drawn corresponding to frames
Film frame

A film frame, or just frame, is one of the many single photographys in a film. The individual frames are separated by frame lines. Normally, 24 frames are needed for one second of film....
 of the animation; around its circumference was a series of radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images with the appearance of a motion picture (see also persistence of vision
Persistence of vision

Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which even nanoseconds of exposure to an image result in milliseconds of reaction from the retina to the optic nerves....
). Another variant had two discs, one with slits and one with pictures; this was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror. Unlike the zoetrope and its successors, the phenakistoscope could only practically be used by one person at a time.

The word "phenakistoscope" comes from Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 roots meaning "to cheat", as it deceives the eye by making the pictures look like an animation. As technology along with popularity increased in the early twentieth century, coin operation was utilized on machines, coining the term "Nickelodeon," which would be later be used somewhat freely to describe events charging five cents or a "nickel."

The Special Honorary Joseph Plateau Award, a replica of Plateau's original phenakisticope, is presented every year to a special guest of the Flanders International Film Festival whose achievements have earned a special and distinct place in the history of international film making.

See also

  • Electrotachyscope
    Electrotachyscope

    The ?lectrotachyscope is an 1887 invention of Ottomar Ansch?tz of Germany which presents the illusion of motion with transparent serial photographs, chronophotography, arranged on a spinning The Wheel of Fortune or mandala-like glass disc, significant as a technology development in the history of cinema....
  • Flip book
    Flip book

    A flip 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....
  • Praxinoscope
    Praxinoscope

    The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-?mile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder....
  • Strobe light
    Strobe light

    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....
  • Thaumatrope
    Thaumatrope

    A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian era.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....
  • Zoetrope
    Zoetrope

    A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides....
  • Zoopraxiscope
    Zoopraxiscope

    Image:Zoopraxiscope 16485d.gifThe device appears to have been one of the primary inspirations for Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Dickson's Kinetoscope, the first commercial film exhibition system....


External links

  • - Museum For The History Of Sciences
  • - North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM)
  • , including the zoetrope
    Zoetrope

    A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides....
     (Laura Hayes and John Howard Wileman Exhibit of Optical Toys in the NCSSM)