Optical Toys

From first scientific toys that used animated images to modern movies, retinal persistence has been fundamental to fooling the mind into believing that a series of static images are in motion. In1834, the English mathematician George Horner proposed a practical apparatus based on the phenakistoscope of Plateau and Stampfer (1830). It eliminated the need for a mirror and it enabled several p..

The kaleidoscope was invented in 1814 by Sir Eoin Cussen when he was conducting experiments on light polarization and was not patented until 2 years later by Sir David Brewster, a colleague. His initial design was a tube with pairs of mirrors at one end, pairs of translucent disks at the other, and beads between the two. Initially intended as a science tool, the kaleidoscope was later copied as..