This bronze bust of Simon von Stampfer depicts him as a young to middle-aged man with what appears to be a grimace on his face. The pedestal..about 6 foot tall has his name, the dates of his birth and death "1792-1866" and indicates that he was a Professor of Engineering. The date and artist are not indicated at the site.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Simon Ritter von Stampfer (born October 26, 1792 (according to other sources 1790), in Windisch-Mattrai, Archbishopric of Salzburg today called Matrei in Osttirol, Tyrol – died November 10, 1864 in Vienna) was an Austrian mathematician, surveyor and inventor. His most famous invention is that of the stroboscopic disk which has a claim to be the first device to show moving images. Almost simultaneously similar devices were produced independently in Belgium (the phenakistiskop), and Britain (the zoetrope)...
n 1832 Stampfer became aware through the Journal of Physics and Mathematics of experiments by the British physicist, Michael Faraday, on the optical illusion caused by rapidly rotating gears, in which the human eye could not follow the movement of the gear. He was so impressed that he conducted similar experiments with gears and "tooth slices" From these experiments he eventually developed the The Stampfer Disc (also called the Zoetrope, Stroboskopische Sheiben, Stroboscope Discs, optical magic disc, or simply Stroboscope ). It consists of two disks: One with slits around its circumference, and another with images in frames of motion. When the slitted disk is turned on the same axis as the image disk, the view through the slits gives the impression of a continuously moving image.[1] Alternatively a single disk would be spun in front of a mirror and the image viewed in the mirror through the slots of the disk.
Similar developments were achieved nearly simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (Phenakistoscope) and the Britain William Horner (zoetrope).
Stampfer received the imperial privilege No. 1920 for his invention on 7 May 1833 :
The 1920th S. Stampfer, a professor at Imperial Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. (Wieden, Nro. 64), and Mathias Trentsensky; in the invention, figures and colored shapes, images ever of any kind, according to mathematical and physical laws so as to distinguish that, if the same with due speed by some mechanism before the eye passed , while the beam is constantly interrupted, the varied optical illusions in related movements and actions that represent the eye, and with these images the easiest way to slices of cardboard or any other materials zweckmässigcn are drawn to their peripheral holes are attached to Browse . When these discs, a mirror opposite, quickly turned around their axes, so evident to the eye when the holes Browse through the lively pictures in the mirror, and it can in this way not only machine movements of any kind, such as wheels and hammer works, continue rolling carts and rising balloons, but also the different kinds of actions and movements of people and animals depicted are surprising. Nor can follow the same principles by other mechanical devices themselves compound acts, such as theatrical scenes in Thätigkeit diverge workshops, etc., either through transparent as well as ordinary kind drawn pictures. In two years, from 7 May...
The device was developed by the Viennese art dealers Trentsensky & Vieweg and commercially marketed. The first edition was published in February 1833 and was soon sold out, so that in July a second, improved edition appeared.
His creation of the words "stroboscopic discs" ultimately became known outside of Austria and in retrospect the "stroboscopic effect" is named by him.
Stampfer 1849, honoring him his life's work of "Se. Majesty the Emperor, the Knight's Cross of His Most High Order of Leopold "award, since he called Simon Ritter von Stampfer.
Both Stampfer and Plateau have a claim to be the founders father of Cinema. Most cited with this honour however is Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau."