Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
If I w3ere writing a Sci-Fi time travel novel, I might try to work in the making of a Daguerreotype somewhere.
Perhaps ancient Greece, first century Rome or during the early Crusades . . . .
Well it5 could have been done . . .if you already knew what to do!
'Course hey might think you were doing black magic.
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Image making by accident?..... does happen.....
Perhaps disasters in the far past made images
Consider "Human Shadow Etched in Stone" recently
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
TC: You may have misread the part about Iodine. The discovey was an accident, not a disaster.
There is an old joke about a fat lady and a fan. . . .
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
cowanw
My understanding was that the chokepoint was fixing the image, initially with salt but it was really the identification of Hypo that did it. If so then 1819 would be the date.
True. Until fixing was discovered, many processes had to be observed in dim candle light, or they would get obliterated. I think each discovery begat another problem, until another discovery. Like most human endeavors, you can't drop just one solution into the timeline 50 years back. There are no time machines then, or now.
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Well...chew on this - that if there were a time machine now...then there would be a time machine then! Ha!
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Some people think synchronicity is a real phenomenon
as in when an idea is ripe, the breakthrough may occur at the same time in a few places, 'Atomic bombs' and spies...
even before modern communication, we always searched for connexions
The Science Behind Coincidence
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Then there's the shroud of Turin, which looks remarkably like a mineralized impression of the features of a conspicuously gothic statue somewhow transferred to tightly applied cloth. But what I'd particularly like to know out of sheer curiosity is how true color (not painted-in) Daguerrotypes happened. A few still exist. They were all sheer accidents, and unrepeatable. Presumably some sort of chemical contamination due to the dicey nature of quality control back then happened. But short of destructive testing, how could that be specifically identified? There are ways to possibly do that now, but these objects seem to be so rare and presumably fragile to any more light, that nobody has been willing to cross that line yet.
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Given how ephemeral even 'archival' photographs are today, I think we should be asking: Is this the first time photography has been invented?
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Let's be glad that so many current photos are ephemeral, or don't even exist except on the web, or in cyberspace.
Re: How Early Could It Have Happened?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tin Can
Some people think synchronicity is a real phenomenon
as in when an idea is ripe, the breakthrough may occur at the same time in a few places, 'Atomic bombs' and spies...
even before modern communication, we always searched for connexions
The Science Behind Coincidence
Calculus, Genetics and the periodic Chart to name a few other concepts that were "discovered" roughly in parallel without mutual consultation. But so many "inventions" were only figured out well after the enabeling technology was available. . . .which is the point of the OP. Photography (Daguerreotyping) got me started, but controlled unpowered flight (a hang glider) is one example.
I saw a documentary on a PBS show that maintained that the concept of an alphabetic notation was invented only once in egypt. You gotta see the show.