Animated Optical Illusion

Most known optical illusion is film. The following example I has created from one of the classic photographic sequences of horses in motion made in the late nineteenth century by the British photographer Eadweard Muybridge. This sequence consists of fifteen photographs capturing phases of a single stride (6.85 metres) of a Californian thoroughbred mare called Annie. On June 19, 1878 Eadweard Muybridge settled a bet for Leland Stanford, governor of California and horse racing enthusiast. Stanford bet a friend that a galloping horse kept at least one hoof on the ground at all times. At the governor's training course in Palo Alto, Muybridge set up 12 cameras at trackside with shutters activated by tripwires. The images were silhouettes but clearly showed that the horse did have all four hooves off the ground during the gallop. The world was shocked to discover that this occurred when the legs came together under the stomach rather than outstretched in front and behind the horse as portrayed by many artists.

Eadweard Muybridge

I animated photographs number 1, 2, 3, 4 (upper row) and photographs 5 - 11. We look at first photograph 0.1 sec and second photograph 0.1 sec and ... the horse is running -- again after 121 years.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4

5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11

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