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CINEMATOGRAPH, or KINEMATOGRAPH (from [Greek: khinĂªma], motion, and [Greek: graphein], to depict), an apparatus in which a series of views representing closely successive phases of a moving object are exhibited in rapid sequence, giving a picture which, owing to persistence of vision, appears to the observer to be in continuous motion. It is a development of the zoetrope or "wheel of life," described by W.G. Horner about 1833, which consists of a hollow cylinder turning on a vertical axis and having its surface pierced with a number of slots. Round the interior is arranged a series of pictures representing successive stages of such a subject as a galloping horse, and when the cylinder is rotated an observer looking through one of the slots sees the horse apparently in motion. The pictures were at first drawn by hand, but photography was afterwards applied to their production. E. Muybridge about 1877 obtained successive pictures of a running horse by employing a row of cameras, the shutters of which were opened and closed electrically by the passage of the horse in front of them, and in 1883 E.J. Marey of Paris established a studio for investigating the motion of animals by similar photographic methods. Entry: CINEMATOGRAPH

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 4 "Cincinnatus" to "Cleruchy"     1910-1911

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