The invention of the Fantascope was due to Joseph Plateau (1801-1883) of Ghent, however it was to a lecture given by Michael Faraday in February 1831 at the Royal Institute that was the catalyst to Plateau work. Faraday demonstrated that a disc constructed with sixteen slits and sixteen intermediate sections with sixteen identical drawings on the verso of the intermediate sections when viewed, whilst the disk was spinning, through the slits to the reflected image in a mirror the image gave the illusion of being stationary. It was to Plateau who then had the imagination to give each image a slight variation and to whom the honour of discovering the optical effect of a moving image is due. To buy please Click here |