Early Pioneer: William George Horner

Who is William Horner?

William George Horner was a famous pioneer. He was a British Mathematician and published a mode of solving numerical equations of any degree now known as Horner’s degree. 
 

What is William Horner famous for?



The Zoetrope

William Horner invented the Zoetrope in 1834 and he originally called it a Daedalum (wheel of the Devil).  The Zoetrope was based on another pioneers invention which was Plateau's phenakistoscope. Horner's invention strangely became forgotten for nearly thirty years until 1867, when it became patented in England by M. Bradley, and in America by William F. Lincoln.  Lincoln renamed the Daedalum, giving it the name of zoetrope, or wheel of life.

How does the Zoetrope work?

The zoetrope uses the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion.  It works from a simple drum with an open top, supported on a central axis.  A sequence of pictures on strips of paper are placed around the inner bottom of the drum.  Slots are cut at equal distances around the outer surface of the drum, just above where the picture strips were positioned.

To create an illusion of motion, the drum is spun; the faster the rate of spin, the smoother the progression of images.  A viewer can look through the wall of the zoetrope from any point around it, and see a rapid progression of images.  Because of its design, more than one person could use the zoetrope at the same time.  

What are the factors that affected the Zoetrope?

The main factors that affected the Zoetrope from working successfully is if the drum was spun too fast, the viewer would not be able to see the moving image because it would just look like a blur, If the drum was spun backwards, it would not work because it was only made to spin one direction and when spun backwards it would just look rubbish, the image that was shown only lasted about 5 seconds of moving image and the slits were quite hard to look through because they were very thin.

How this information has helped me

Through the whole of my research, this information has helped me to understand the basic Knowledge and understanding of William George Horner.  The information that interests me the most is that how he invented the zoetrope and how you can see a picture moving just through looking in a little slit. In modern days they still use this method of motion picture.