Thaumatrope

The toy has traditionally been thought to demonstrate the principle of persistence of vision, a disputed explanation for the cause of illusory motion in stroboscopic animation and film.

A 2012 paper[1] argues that a prehistoric bone disk found in the Laugerie-Basse rockshelter is a thaumatrope, designed to be spun using leather thongs threaded through the central perforation.

He described the device in his 1827 educational book for children Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest, with an illustration by George Cruikshank.

A few days later Fitton brought Babbage a new illustration of the principle, consisting of a round disc of card suspended between two pieces of sewing silk.

[2] French artist Antoine Claudet stated in 1867 that he had heard that Paris had once been present when Herschel demonstrated his rotating coin trick to his children and subsequently got the idea for the thaumatrope.

Paris was widely regarded as the author, but wasn't mentioned on the product or its packaging and he later claimed in a letter to Michael Faraday "I was first induced to publish it, at the earnest desire of my late friend Wm Phillips.

[4] Although the toy became very popular, original copies are now very rare; only one extant set produced by W. Phillips is currently known (in the Richard Balzer collection) and one single disc is at the Cinématheque Française.

In the first 1827 edition of "Philosophy in Sport" John Ayrton Paris described a version with a circular frame around the disc through which the strings were threaded.

20,281 for a clockwork thaumatrope with "pictures or designs exhibiting some action or motion in two phases, which are thus alternately presented to the eye in rapid succession with small intervals of rest".

In the 1999 Tim Burton film Sleepy Hollow, a bird and cage thaumatrope is demonstrated by Johnny Depp's character.

In the 2006 Christopher Nolan film The Prestige, Michael Caine's character repeatedly uses a thaumatrope as a way of explaining persistence of vision.

In the 2011 Martin Scorsese film Hugo, the final scene begins in the middle of a conversation about cinema precursors, including the thaumatrope.