Photography I / The Birth of Photography and Its First Theory
Practice question · Put in order

Arrange these events in the invention of photography in chronological order.

Hints
  1. The optics are eight centuries older than the chemistry.
  2. The patent follows the announcement by two years.
Show the answer
  1. Ibn al-Haytham describes the camera obscura, about 1021
  2. Schulze shows that silver salts darken from light rather than heat, 1727
  3. Niépce makes the view from his window at Le Gras, about 1826
  4. Arago announces the daguerreotype to the Académie des Sciences, 1839
  5. Talbot patents the calotype negative-positive process, 1841
Why

The eight-hundred-year gap between the first two items is the shape of the story: the camera existed for centuries as a drawing aid and the whole problem was chemical. What was invented in the 1830s was not the image but the means of arresting it.

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