Phenakistiscope

Learning objectives

To illustrate the phenomenon of persistence of vision at the level of the retina.
To compare the principle of the phenakistiscope to that underlying modern cinema.

Brought to you in cooperation with the Musée des arts et métiers - Paris.

The Phenakistiscope is a disk that turns freely around its own center. An observer must turn the disk at sufficient speed while observing images on the disk through a slit. This procedure results in an animated image, repeating itself in loop fashion, appearing on the other side of the slit. The Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau, born in 1803, is often credited with the invention of this ancestor of motion pictures.