Ding Huan () was a Chinese craftsman, mechanical engineer, and inventor who lived in the first century BC during the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

. Among the inventions attributed to him is an air conditioning system based on

evaporative cooling An evaporative cooler (also known as evaporative air conditioner, swamp cooler, swamp box, desert cooler and wet air cooler) is a device that cools air through the evaporation of water. Evaporative cooling differs from other air conditioning ...

Purported invention of the zoetrope

In his multi-volume ''

Science and Civilisation in China ''Science and Civilisation in China'' (1954–present) is an ongoing series of books about the history of science and technology in China published by Cambridge University Press. It was initiated and edited by British historian Joseph Needham (1 ...

'', the British scientist and historian

Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, i ...

briefly describes several devices he classes as "... a variety of

zoetrope A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...

, which may well have originated in China".Needham, Joseph (1962). ''Science and Civilization in China'', vol. IV, part 1: ''Physics and Physical Technology''. Cambridge University Press. p. 123-124. The first example he offers used an umbrella-like canopy hung over an oil lamp and provided with a vaned opening at its top, so that heated air rising from the lamp would cause it to rotate. The lower part of the canopy was in the form of a cylinder and had translucent panes with paintings of animals or men. Sufficiently rapid rotation would "give an impression of movement" to the painted figures. Several later writers have misreported Needham by crediting this particular device to Ding Huan. The only such invention Needham attributes to Ding Huan is "a 'nine-storied hill-censer' ... on which many strange birds and mysterious animals were attached. All ... moved quite naturally ... presumably as soon as the lamp was lit." Needham claims these devices "certainly embodied the principle of a rapid succession of images", but it is not apparent from any of the descriptions provided that there was anything other than a ''procession'' of painted figures or carvings or cast shadows seen actually moving through space. By contrast, the invention for which the name "

" was coined in the 19th century is, like the

flip book A flip book, flipbook, flicker book, or kineograph is a booklet with a series of images that very gradually change from one page to the next, so that when the pages are viewed in quick succession, the images appear to animate by simulating moti ...

, an

animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

device that creates an ''illusion'' of motion from a series of images showing successive phases of that motion, by rapidly presenting them to the viewer one after another in such a way that each abruptly replaces (or ''seems'' to abruptly replace) the previous one.

References

1st-century BC Chinese people Chinese animation Chinese hydrologists Chinese inventors Chinese mechanical engineers Engineers from Shaanxi Hydraulic engineers People from Xi'an Year of death missing {{China-bio-stub