Origin of Famous Inventions and Inventors: Movies or Motion Pictures

About the origin of the invention of motion pictures or movies, history of how inventor Eadweard Muybridge first filmed a horse.

THE INVENTION: Motion Pictures (1867 and on)

THE INVENTORS: Eadweard Muybridge, G.B.; Thomas Edison, U.S.; Louis and Auguste Lumiere, France; et al.

Somewhere between 1867 and 1871, Eadweard Muybridge and J. D. Isaacs--to settle a bet about whether or not a horse's hoofs could all be off the ground at once in a race--set up a series of cameras at trackside. Timing devices made the camera shutters trip in sequence, one after the other, as the horse galloped past. Muybridge, an Englishman, performed the experiment in California. He invented a revolving disk mechanism, called the zoopraxiscope, to exhibit the photo sequence that showed at least one equine foot on the ground at all times.