Thomas Armat: Difference between revisions

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'''Thomas J. Armat''' ([[1866]] - [[September 30]], [[1948]]) was an [[United States|American]] mechanic and [[inventor]], a pioneer of [[film|cinema]] best known through the co-invention of the Edison ''Vitascope''.

Armat studied at the Mechanics Instuitute in [[Richmond, Virginia]] and then in [[1894]] at the Bliss School of Electricity in [[Washington, D.C.]], where he met [[Charles Francis Jenkins]]. The two classmates teamed up to develop a [[movie projector]] using a new kind of intermittent motion mechanism, a "beater mechanism" similar to the one patented [[1893]] by [[Georges Demeny|Georges Demenÿ]] in [[France]]. It was one of the first projectors using what is known as the "[[Latham loop]]" (an extra loop of the film before the transport mechanism to reduce the tension on the film and avoid film breakage, developed independently at the same time by [[Woodville Latham]] and his sons). They made their first public projection using their invention, named ''Phantascope'' after an earlier model designed by Jenkins alone, in September [[1895]] at the Cotton States Exposition in [[Atlanta]].