Towards Filming Chemical Reactions
Optics & Photonics Focus
Volume 2 Story 6 - 25/9/2008

The galloping race horse

By taking pictures of a process at different times and recombining the images, one can get a better understanding of a dynamical process. This picture, for example, proved that a race horse does take all feet off the ground while galloping. High-speed laser pulses can be used to image fast processes like electrons orbiting in molecules at different times. Picture: Eadweard Muybridge, 1887
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The galloping race horse. By taking pictures of a process at different times and recombining the images, one can get a better understanding of a dynamical process. This picture, for example, proved that a race horse does take all feet off the ground while galloping. High-speed laser pulses can be used to image fast processes like electrons orbiting in molecules at different times.