Optical toys form a group of devices with some entertainment value combined with a scientific, optical nature. Many of these were also known as "philosophical toys" when they were developed in the 19th century.
People must have experimented with optical phenomena since prehistoric times and played with objects that influenced the experience of light, color and shadow. In the 16th century some experimental optical entertainment - for instance camera obscura demonstrations - were part of the cabinets of curiosities that emerged at royal courts. Since the 17th century optical tabletop instruments such as the compound microscope and telescope were used for parlour entertainment in richer households .
Other, larger devices - such as peep shows - were usually exhibited by travelling showmen at fairs.
The phenakistiscope, zoetrope, praxinoscope and flip book a.o. are often seen as precursors of film, leading to the invention of cinema at the end of the 19th century. In the 21st century this narrow teleological vision was questioned and the individual qualities of these media gained renewed attention of researchers in the fields of the history of film, science, technology and art. The new digital media raised questions about our knowledge of media history. The tactile qualities of optical toys that allow viewers to study and play with the moving image in their own hands, seem more attractive in a time when digital transformation makes the moving image less tangible.[1]
Several philosophical toys were developed through scientific experimentation, then turned into scientific amusements that demonstrated new ideas and theories in the fields of optics, physics, electricity, mechanics, etc. and ended up as toys for children.[2]
| date | name | inventor(s) | type/function | note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n/a | Camera obscura | n/a | projection | a natural phenomenon, applied with lens since around 1550, portable box since early 17th century | |
| 730 BCE (circa) | Lens | n/a | burning glass? | the function of the oldest known lens, the Nimrud lens, is unclear (it may only have been used for decoration), lenses were probably seldom used as a magnifying glass or as glasses before the 13th century | |
| 100 BCE (circa) | n/a | projection | probably introduced centuries or thousands of years before they became popular during the Han dynasty | ||
| 0 (circa) | Prism | n/a | dispersion | Seneca noted that a prism could form the same colors as the rainbow | |
| 150 (circa) | Newton disc / color-top (chameleon top) | Ptolemy | additive optical color mixing | first known description by Ptolemy, later falsely attributed to Isaac Newton | |
| 850 (circa) | reading stone | Abbas ibn Firnas? | magnification | not regularly used before circa 1000 | |
| 1437? | Peep box / raree show | Leon Battista Alberti? | especially popular from the 17th to the 19th century | ||
| 1485 (circa)? | Perspective anamorphosis | Leonardo da Vinci? | anamorphosis | ||
| 1500s | Tabula scalata | n/a | extant copies from late 16th century, also referred to in literature of the time (including works by Shakespeare) | ||
| 1500s? | Pleasurable spectacles (faceted and coloured glass lenses) | described and illustrated in I. Prevost's La Première partie des subtiles et plaisantes inventions (1584),[3] but the distortion of vision when looking through transparent objects must have been known much earlier (probably long before the use of reading stones) | |||
| 1600s | Mirror anamorphosis | n/a | anamorphosis | reached Europe around 1620, possibly from China via Constantinople [4] | |
| 1608 | Telescope | Hans Lippershey? Zacharias Janssen? Jacob Metius? | |||
| 1620s? | Compound microscope | Cornelis Drebbel? | |||
| >1630s | Mirrored room | multiplication | a room lined with 200 mirrors in the palace of the king of Armenia was described in 1647 by Adam Olearius[5] | ||
| 1638 | Perspective glass | Jean François Niceron? | hidden image | a viewing tube with a faceted lens that brings together selective parts of a picture into one composite image | |
| 1650s | Perspective box | viewing box with a lens, false perspective painted on multiple planes in the interior of the box | |||
| 1659 | Magic lantern | Christiaan Huygens | projection | ||
| 1730? | Zograscope perspective views | n/a | 3D | known in France since 1730 as "optique", it became known as the "zograscope" in England since 1745 | |
| 1736 | Solar microscope | Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit | projection | ||
| 1770s? | Chinese fireworks or Feux pyriques | n/a | animated light effects | ||
| 1817 | Kaleidoscope | David Brewster | |||
| 1822 | Polyorama Panoptique | Pierre Seguin? | |||
| 1825 | Thaumatrope | William Henry Fitton? | introduced by John Ayrton Paris | ||
| 1827 | Kaleidophone | Charles Wheatstone | |||
| 1829 | Anorthoscope | Joseph Plateau | anamorphosis | marketed shortly since 1836 | |
| 1833-01 | Phénakisticope | Joseph Plateau, Simon Stampfer | animation | ||
| 1833 | Stereoscope | Sir Charles Wheatstone | 3D | mirror version developed by Wheatstone around 1832, presented/published in 1838, prismatic version probably developed simultaneously by Wheatstone, prismatic/lenticular version introduced in 1849 by David Brewster and popularized with production by Jules Duboscq since 1850 | |
| 1852 | Anaglyph 3D | Wilhelm Rollmann | 3D | ||
| 1858-04 | Kaleidoscopic colour-top | John Gorham | |||
| 1860 | Alethoscope | Carlo Ponti | 3D | further developed into the Megalethoscope | |
| 1864 | Spectropia | J. H. Brown | afterimage | ||
| 1866-12 | Zoetrope | William Ensign Lincoln | animation | similar devices suggested and exhibited since 1833, now with exchangeable strips | |
| 1868 (circa) | The Optic Wonder or Creator of Form | John Gorham | 3D | a small metal strip or crystal shape forming the half of a contour image is spun around fast to appear as a full solid 3D object, marketed by Stereoscopic Company (London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co.)[6] [7] | |
| 1868 | Flip book | John Barnes Linnett | animation | ||
| 1877 | Praxinoscope | Charles-Émile Reynaud | animation | ||
| 1894 | Mutoscope | William Kennedy Dickson, Herman Casler | moving pictures | ||
| 1896 | Kinora | Auguste and Louis Lumière | moving pictures | ||
| 1906 | Scanimation | Alexander S. Spiegel | animation | originally marketed as magical moving pictures, adapted as scanimation since 2006 | |
| 1921 | Ombro-Cinéma | Saussine | animation | ||
| 1939 | View-Master | William Gruber | 3D | ||
| 1952 | Lenticular pictures | Victor Anderson | animation | originally invented in 1898 as autostereogram, now popularized as changing/moving pictures | |
| 1980 | Mandelbrot set visualizations | Benoit Mandelbrot | |||
| 1991 | Magic Eye | Tom Baccei, Cheri Smith | 3D / hidden image | Christopher Tyler developed a black and white version in 1979 |