Cinema: Its Surreptitious Service to Science.

Abstract

The invention of the motion picture, like that of photography, was a major milestone in visual culture, comparable to the later development of television and then digital media. In terms of expanding the possibilities of visual record, it was akin to the introduction of linear perspective, or microscopy in the earlier centuries. The impact of film on entertainment worldwide was near enough instantaneous. Its commercial potential started to be realized very quickly. This probably accounts for the fact that there is no single inventor. The film was a successor to the magic lanterns, which projected still photographic images to create a resemblance of narratives (1, 2). The story of cinema as we know it today starts at the end of the 19th century. A major role was played by the most prolific of American inventors, Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) (3). In 1888, Edison invented a peephole viewer called the Kinetoscope; many of these devices were subsequently sold in Europe. In 1891, he was granted a patent for a Kinetograph camera, an invention to which William K. Dickson contributed in a major …