Mathematician:Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau

Mathematician
Belgian physicist and mathematician.

One of the first people to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image.

Invented the first device to show a moving image by means of a series of stills, thereby inventing the concept of cinema.

Nationality
Belgian (although as that state did not exist at the time of his birth, he identified as French)

History

 * Born: 14 October 1801 in Brussels, French Empire (now Belgium)
 * 1827: Became a teacher of mathematics at the "Atheneum" school in Brussels
 * 1829: Graduated as a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences from Liege
 * 1832: Invented the phenakistiscope
 * 1835: Appointed Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Ghent University
 * Died: 15 September 1883 in Ghent, Belgium

Theorems and Definitions

 * Plateau's Laws
 * Plateau Problem
 * Plateau-Rayleigh Instability (with )

Publications

 * 1873: Statique expérimentale et théorique des liquides soumis aux seules forces moléculaires ("Experimental and theoretical statics of liquids subject to only molecular forces")