Google doodle gets animated to honor zoopraxiscope creator
Long before there was Flash animation in the world, Eadweard Muybridge gave us the Zoopraxiscope, a simple stop-motion device considered by some to be the first-ever movie projector. Created in 1879, the player features spinning glass disks that give displayed images the illusion of movement. Muybridge, born this day in 1830, photographed a galloping horse to help settle the question of whether all four of the animal's hooves leave the ground at the same time while galloping (they do), later animating the image via his new invention. That movement can be set in motion with a click on today's Google doodle.
