Very Interesting – July-August 2019

T

he invention of the movie camera

is, ironically, a story worthy of

Hollywood. In 1888, the renowned

American inventor Thomas Edison

drew up plans to build a camera that

could record moving images onto a

cylinder. Within a few years,

colleagues had produced a more

sophisticated device that captured

images onto a reel of 35mm

photographic film – which remains the

standard format.

But even as Edison started work, a

French artist seemed to have beaten

him to the punch. Louis le Prince had

already built a single-lens camera,

and in 1888 used it to make a brief

silent movie of people walking in a

garden. As the oldest movie in

existence, Roundhay Garden Scene

appears to be proof that Le Prince

should be credited with inventing the

first movie camera. Yet his claim to

priority remains controversial because

just before patenting his device and

taking it on tour in America, in

September 1890, Le Prince vanished.

His wife suspected foul play, and in

2008 a magazine claimed that

evidence had emerged showing Edison

had arranged Le Prince’s

assassination. Yet while Edison

certainly had a motive, the ‘evidence’

has never been substantiated, and the

mystery of Le Prince’s disappearance

remains unsolved.

Who really

invented the

movie camera?

GETTY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY ILLUSTRATION: PETER SUCHESKI

A

lthough astronomers often discuss

the expansion of the universe in

terms of a two-dimensional plane, the

universe is, of course, three-dimensional

(at least in our spatial experience of it).

The expansion of the universe is the same

in all directions, so it is just as ‘tall’ (or

‘deep’) as it is ‘wide’. Unfortunately,

though, we cannot know the size of the

universe. This is because light takes time

to reach us from the furthest depths of

space: we’re currently unable to see

beyond around 46 billion light-years (the

boundary of the ‘observable universe’). We

have no idea how much of the universe lies

beyond that.

How tall is the universe?

Steven Grant, Kommetjie

THOMAS

EDISON

LOUIS LE

PRINCE

A

s the Earth spins, the speed of rotation
experienced at the equator is much
faster than at the North Pole. This difference
causes the ‘Coriolis effect’ – a force which
appears to deflect winds towards the right in
the Northern Hemisphere. In a low-pressure
weather system, air flows inward, but this

deflection twists the air flow towards the right,

creating an anticlockwise swirl of winds. In a

high-pressure system, air flows outward, and

the deflection results in a clockwise rotation.

The Coriolis effect deflects winds towards the

left in the Southern Hemisphere, so weather

systems here spin in the opposite direction.

Why do low-pressure systems turn

anticlockwise? Sam Mabizela, Johannesburg

Intended path

Actual path

(northern hemisphere)

Actual path

(southern hemisphere)

THE CORIOLIS EFFECT

The Earth’s surface

travels faster at the

equator than at the

poles

Imagine a current of air moving

from the equator.

Even though it’s moving in a

straight line, it appears to an

observer to bend towards the

right. This is because as it

moves northwards, the ground

beneath is moving

progressively slower and

hasn’t ‘caught up’ with the air

current.

In the southern hemisphere,

this effect causes currents to

bend towards the left.

1

2

3

Equator

Q&A

Questions & Answers

A It’s estimated that

there may be as many

as three sextillion (3,

followed by 23

zeroes) stars in the

universe.

A The observable

matter (stars and

planets) makes up

only 5% of the

universe.

Q

&

A

FLASH

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