A Movie From Before Movies Were Invented

Alien54 writes "Two astronomers at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose have discovered a set of 147 plates taken of the transit of Venus in 1882. They've assembled them into a Quicktime movie! Think about it. This is a movie from before movies were invented. As a point of comparison, Edison didn't get his films going until the 1890s. This is just around the time when Muybridge was doing his work on the motion of horses and people."

Comments

Galileo's sunspots

[apothoray]

How about Galielo's Sunspots from 1612. Really, any 2D, time series data can be considered a "movie".

Re:Galileo's sunspots

[VanillaCoke420]

You could make it into a movie.

Re:Yeah, but

[AdamInParadise]

Porn was found in the remains of Pompei. I'm pretty sure someone will come up with a sample of Egyptian porn (being 2000BC).

Now does anyone have an example of Neoholitic porn? Goddess of fertility doesn't count.

Color photos before color film

[jonhuang]

Reminds me of this guy: Russian color photos before color film

Re:Yeah, but

[Psykosys]

There are many different theories about the Venus statues - they are not necessarily all portrayals of the "fertility goddess", and it has often been suggested that some of the statues, with their exagerrated breasts + genitals, were indeed used in the same way that porn is today.

Galileo's Sunspots - Even Earlier

[bangzilla]

I attended an Edward Tufte lecture last year where he had assembled static pictures from drawings made by Galileo of the motion of Sun spots into a movie -- Galileo was the "cameraman", Tufte the "editor". Nice teamwork.

Lots of links here http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EdwardTufte

I also recall someone recreating audio from the thousands of years ago from the grooves cut by a potter in the pot he/she was throwing on a wheel. Essentially the pot and it's grooves acted as a recording device in the same way that the groves in vinyl do (did!).

Lick Observatory is a treasure trove

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work up at Lick Observatory when I was in College. They have a real treasure trove up there, so I'm not surprised that someone has stumbled across this stuff.

The stuff really ought to be cataloged and put on display. Some of it is priceless.

Aside from James Licks' body being buried under the base of the 36" telescope, back in the archive storage that have a lot of interesting things from history. Like some of the equipment used for the experiment which established that the speed of light was a constant in a vacuum. The actual seismic records from the San Francisco Earthquake. I've forgotten what else; but those things stand out. It's a huge storage area up there.

Plus they have a copy of UC Berkeley's student records. It's used as a safe place in case of disaster. Also, James Licks' deathbed is there too. And the safe they have is straight from the 1800's.

In case any two-bit crackers are thinking about breaking in and exploring it, forget about it. Security is excellent up there. I busted a clueless group once myself. And the cops they have are real aggressive hard-asses.

Executing Elephants and Edison vs. Tesla

[Cordath]

Tesla originally worked for Edison, but they had a bit of a falling out. Eventually they were both competing in the power market, with Tesla selling AC current and Edison selling DC. AC has a lot of advantages for power transmision, but that didn't stop Edison from embarking on a campaign to discredit AC power. He electrocuted dogs and cats with AC current in public demonstrations intended to show how dangerous AC power was.

During the construction of Luna Park on Coney island, an elephant used as a beast of burden killed a couple of people. Topsy, as she was called, was condemned to death. However, there was a wee bit of a problem. Elephants aren't the easiest critters to kill. Edison, being the generous person he was, gladly volunteered to execute the elephant with AC current, and filmed the whole thing. He showed that film "Electrocuting an Elephant" (1903) publically on many occasions and I am sure more than a few stray cats and dogs escaped a crispy fate thanks to that film. It is still possible to track down copies of "Electrocuting an Elephant" today. Please be warned that it's a rather gruesome little piece of history, and is not for the faint of heart, or SPCA members.

Picture of Mickey Mouse before he was invented

[Alien54]

Can you find one of Mickey Mouse before he was invented? I really want to piss off Disney for extending the copyright to keep their damn rodent.

An Anonymous coward posted this link, but since it did not make it above the noise, here is the link to the news story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2481749.s tm

Friday, 15 November, 2002 - A 700-year-old fresco bearing an uncanny resemblance to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse has been discovered in Austria. The mouse figure was unearthed by an art historian working on the church in the southern village of Malta. Click here to see the image of the fresco in full The figure bears an enormous resemblance to Walt Disney's famous mouse to this 14th Century figure. Art historians are claiming the discovery could mean the end of Disney's copyright on the character.