Jan Szczepanik

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Jan Szczepanik
Jan Szczepanik - autograph 2.jpg
Born(1872-06-13)June 13, 1872
Rudniki, Austrian Poland
DiedApril 18, 1926(1926-04-18) (aged 53)
OccupationInventor

Jan Szczepanik (June 13, 1872 – April 18, 1926) was a Polish inventor, with several hundred patents and over 50 discoveries to his name, many of which are still applied today, especially in the motion picture industry, as well as in photography and television. Some of his concepts helped the future evolution of TV broadcasting, such as the telectroscope (an apparatus for distant reproduction of images and sound using electricity) or the wireless telegraph, which greatly affected the development of telecommunications. He died in Tarnów in the Second Polish Republic.

Contents

Biography

Jan Szczepanik memorial in Tarnow, Poland Jan Szczepanik memorial Tarnow Poland.jpg
Jan Szczepanik memorial in Tarnów, Poland

Szczepanik was born in the Austrian Partition, in the village of Rudniki near Mościska (now Mostyska, [1] Ukraine) but relocated as infant with his mother to Zręcin in the industrial region of Krosno, [2] where he grew up. His birthplace was controlled by Austria-Hungary between 1772–1918 after the partitions of Poland. Szczepanik graduated from a teachers' college and spent a lot of time reading scientific literature and journals. He moved to Vienna after his attempt to advance the Jacquard loom from France (invented in 1801) was rejected by some local weavers for fear of losing business. His knowledge of fabric however, enabled him to create the first ballistic vest using silk. Spanish king Alfonso XIII (who used it in 1901) awarded him an order for its invention. [2] Szczepanik was granted awards by other royal courts. The Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria relieved him of mandatory military service fascinated with photosculpture – known also as photoplastigraphy – introduced to him by Szczepanik. It was based on an idea patented in 1859 by François Willème (1830–1905) for producing portrait sculpture using synchronized photo projections. [3] The Emperor gave him a pair of pistols for that as a souvenir.

Before World War I, Szczepanik carried out experiments with photography and image projection, as well as with small format color film. He holds patents for a new weaving method, a system of obtaining tri-color photography rasters, and equipment for sound recording and playback.

Following the discoverer's idea, Agfa corporation produced its Agfacolor reversible paper; color films were also made for the first time, projecting 24 frames per second. Szczepanik's more significant discoveries also include the colorimeter (a color control tool), an electric rifle, and a color image weaving method, together with the automation of their production.

Szczepanik also worked on a moving wing aircraft, a duplex rotor helicopter, a dirigible, and a submarine. Mark Twain met Szczepanik and described him in two of his articles: "The Austrian Edison keeping school again" (1898) and "From The Times of 1904" (1898).

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kirlian photography</span> Photographic techniques used to capture electrical coronal discharges

Kirlian photography is a collection of photographic techniques used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges. It is named after Semyon Kirlian, who, in 1939, accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high-voltage source, an image is produced on the photographic plate. The technique has been variously known as "electrography", "electrophotography", "corona discharge photography" (CDP), "bioelectrography", "gas discharge visualization (GDV)", "electrophotonic imaging (EPI)", and, in Russian literature, "Kirlianography".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">35 mm movie film</span> Motion picture film gauge, the standard

35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on film, 35 mm is the most commonly used gauge. The name of the gauge is not a direct measurement, and refers to the nominal width of the 35 mm format photographic film, which consists of strips 1.377 ± 0.001 inches (34.976 ± 0.025 mm) wide. The standard image exposure length on 35 mm for movies is four perforations per frame along both edges, which results in 16 frames per foot of film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kodachrome</span> Brand name of an Eastman Kodak film

Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years, Kodachrome was widely used for professional color photography, especially for images intended for publication in print media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky</span> Russian chemist and photographer (1863–1944)

Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky was a Russian chemist and photographer. He is best known for his pioneering work in color photography and his effort to document early 20th-century Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color photography</span> Photography that reproduces colors

Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of showing shades of gray.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kazimierz Prószyński</span> Polish inventor

Kazimierz Prószyński was a Polish inventor active in the field of cinematography. He patented his first film camera, called Pleograph, before the Lumière brothers, and later went on to improve the cinema projector for the Gaumont company. He was also the inventor of the widely used first hand-held Aeroscope camera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron</span>

Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron was a French pioneer of color photography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of photography</span>

The history of photography began with the discovery of two critical principles: camera obscura image projection and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light sensitive materials prior to the 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Polish science and technology</span> Timeline of the history of science and technology in Poland

Education has been of prime interest to Poland's rulers since the early 12th century. The catalog of the library of the Cathedral Chapter in Kraków dating from 1110 shows that Polish scholars already then had access to western European literature. In 1364, King Kazimierz the Great founded the Cracow Academy, which would become one of the great universities of Europe. The Polish people have made considerable contributions in the fields of science, technology and mathematics. The list of famous scientists in Poland begins in earnest with the polymath, astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, who formulated the heliocentric theory and sparked the European Scientific Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Precursors of film</span> Methods and tools preceding true cinematographic technology

Precursors of film are concepts and devices that have much in common with the later art and techniques of cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casimir Zeglen</span> Inventor of a silk bulletproof vest

Casimir Zeglen was a Polish priest who invented a silk bulletproof vest. At the age of 18 he entered the Resurrectionist Order in Lwów. In 1890, he moved to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color motion picture film</span> Photographic film type

Color motion picture film refers both to unexposed color photographic film in a format suitable for use in a motion picture camera, and to finished motion picture film, ready for use in a projector, which bears images in color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prizma</span> Color motion picture process

The Prizma Color system was a color motion picture process, invented in 1913 by William Van Doren Kelley and Charles Raleigh. Initially, it was a two-color additive color system, similar to its predecessor, Kinemacolor. However, Kelley eventually transformed Prizma into a bi-pack color system that itself became the predecessor for future color processes such as Multicolor and Cinecolor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dufaycolor</span>

Dufaycolor is an early British additive colour photographic film process, introduced for motion picture use in 1932 and for still photography in 1935. It was derived from Louis Dufay's Dioptichrome plates, a glass-based product for colour still photography, introduced in France in 1909. Both Dioptichrome and Dufaycolor worked on the same principles as the Autochrome process, but achieved their results using a layer of tiny colour filter elements arrayed in a regular geometric pattern, unlike Autochrome's random array of coloured starch grains. The manufacture of Dufaycolor film ended in the late 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Théâtre Optique</span>

The Théâtre Optique is an animated moving picture system invented by Émile Reynaud and patented in 1888. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900 Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris. His Pantomimes Lumineuses series of animated films include Pauvre Pierrot and Autour d'une cabine. Reynaud's Théâtre Optique predated Auguste and Louis Lumière's first commercial, public screening of the cinematograph on 28 December 1895, which has long been seen as the birth of film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Film</span> Visual art consisting of moving images

A film – also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick – is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leopold Loeffler</span>

Leopold Loeffler, also spelled Löffler,, was a Polish realist painter of the late Romantic period popular in the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of Poland. Lithographic reproductions of his paintings were widely distributed among the members of the Kraków and Warsaw art societies, and frequently reprinted in popular periodicals owing to their historical references to Polish national uprisings and battlefronts, as well as their great attention to period detail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of film technology</span> Aspect of motion picture history

The history of film technology traces the development of techniques for the recording, construction and presentation of motion pictures. When the film medium came about in the 19th century, there already was a centuries old tradition of screening moving images through shadow play and the magic lantern that were very popular with audiences in many parts of the world. Especially the magic lantern influenced much of the projection technology, exhibition practices and cultural implementation of film. Between 1825 and 1840, the relevant technologies of stroboscopic animation, photography and stereoscopy were introduced. For much of the rest of the century, many engineers and inventors tried to combine all these new technologies and the much older technique of projection to create a complete illusion or a complete documentation of reality. Colour photography was usually included in these ambitions and the introduction of the phonograph in 1877 seemed to promise the addition of synchronized sound recordings. Between 1887 and 1894, the first successful short cinematographic presentations were established. The biggest popular breakthrough of the technology came in 1895 with the first projected movies that lasted longer than 10 seconds. During the first years after this breakthrough, most motion pictures lasted about 50 seconds, lacked synchronized sound and natural colour, and were mainly exhibited as novelty attractions. In the first decades of the 20th century, movies grew much longer and the medium quickly developed into one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment. The breakthrough of synchronized sound occurred at the end of the 1920s and that of full color motion picture film in the 1930s. By the start of the 21st century, physical film stock was being replaced with digital film technologies at both ends of the production chain by digital image sensors and projectors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barrier-grid animation and stereography</span> Animation method

Barrier-grid animation or picket-fence animation is an animation effect created by moving a striped transparent overlay across an interlaced image. The barrier-grid technique originated in the late 1890s, overlapping with the development of parallax stereography (Relièphographie) for 3D autostereograms. The technique has also been used for color-changing pictures, but to a much lesser extent.

References

  1. MOwT (2013). "Jan Szczepanik". Wirtualna czytelnia - Varia. Muzeum Okręgowe w Tarnowie. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
  2. 1 2 Andrzej Pilipiuk, Paweł Wiliński (2005) Zapomniany geniusz Archived 2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine (Forgotten genius). (in Polish) Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  3. "Photosculpture". Oxford Companion to the Photograph. Answers.com © Oxford University Press. 2005. Retrieved June 23, 2012.