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Who was Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau? The pioneering scientist honoured in today's Google Doodle

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Google is today honouring the birthday of a pioneering scientist whose groundbreaking invention led to the birth of cinema.

Belgian physicist Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau is known for inventing the phénakistiscope, a device which created the illusion of moving images through the use of rotating discs.

His 1832 invention is credited with eventually leading to the development of cinema, while he also gave his name to a series of laws known as "Plateau's laws", in which he described the structure of soap films.

With today's Google Doodle celebrating the scientist's 218th birthday, here's all you need to know about Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau.

Who is Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau?

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau was born in Brussels on this day in 1801, the son of an accomplished artist who specialised in painting flowers.

Somewhat of a child prodigy, Plateau was already able to read by the age of six which marked him out as special early on, and he soon turned his attention to physics while at primary school.

After studying law at the University of Liege, Plateau graduated in 1829 as a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences while working as a maths teacher at the Athenaeum of Liège.

It was around this time that Plateau, who was interested in the the persistence of light impressions on the eye, performed an experiment on himself in which he stared directly at the sun for 25 seconds, an event which he attributed to the loss of his sight later in life.

Nevertheless, his research on physiological optics, particularly the effect of light and colour on the human retina, soon meant he became recognised throughout 19th century Belgium.

In 1835 Plateau was offered the position of physics professor at the University of Ghent, where he worked as a teacher, researcher and promoter of science.

He was elected a member of the Royal Belgium Academy of Science in 1836, and married Augustine–Thérèse–Aimée–Fanny Clavareau in 1840, with the couple having a son and daughter.

In 1872 he became a foreign member of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the same year he was named Commander of the Order of Leopold.

Though he became blind later in life, he remained an active physics professor and continued to have a productive career in the field, with the help of colleagues and family members.

What is Plateau famous for?

Plateau is known for his research on visual perception, which eventually led to the onset of cinema.

His doctoral dissertation focused on how images form on the retina, and he noted their duration, colour and intensity.

Based on these conclusions, in 1832 he created a stroboscopic device that was fitted with two discs which rotated in opposite directions.

One of the disks had small windows spaced evenly apart that the viewer could look through while the other contained a series of images of a dancer.

When both disks rotated at the right speed, the synchronisation of the windows and images seemed to merge and created the illusion of a dancer in motion.

Plateau called this device a phénakistiscope, and it has been credited with helping to develop cinema.

Plateau is also famous for studying capillary action and surface tension - the mathematical problem of the existence of a minimal surface with a given boundary is known as Plateau's Problem.

The studies which he later conducted on soap films formed Plateau's laws, which describe the structures formed by those films in foams.

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