Simon von Stampfer

Simon Ritter von Stampfer was an Austrian mathematician, surveyor and inventor, born in Matrei in Osttirol in the Tyrol in 1792, although some sources give 1790, the first son of a weaver. He attended the Franciscan Gymnasium in Lienz and studied philosophy at the Lyceum in Salzburg, passed the state examination in Munich in 1814, and then worked in Salzburg as an assistant teacher of mathematics, natural history, physics and Greek, later teaching elementary mathematics, physics and applied mathematics at the Lyceum. His most famous invention is the stroboscopic disk, which has a claim to be the first device to show moving images; a similar device, the phenakistiscope, was developed almost simultaneously in Belgium. He died in Vienna on 10 November 1864.