Source link : https://bq3anews.com/celluloid-the-tale-of-the-plastic-that-made-hollywood/
Historical past can every so often take an surprising flip. Any such bizarre, progressive twists happened in the midst of the Nineteenth century, when the tale of a humble on a regular basis object – a billiard ball – ended up on a cinematic scale.
Billiard balls have been at the start product of ivory, and the wish to change this uncommon subject matter ended in the discovery of a brand new, peculiar subject matter: celluloid. Regarded as the primary semi-synthetic plastic, this substance did extra than simply pave the way in which for long term plastics – it was once additionally necessary within the earliest techniques for recording and projecting transferring photographs.
With out it, the cinema as we realize it lately would now not exist.
From pool halls to Hollywood
Within the mid-Nineteenth century, billiards was once the entire rage, and the business surrounding it generated massive sums of cash. Michael Phelan was once possibly probably the most well-known industrialist, and certainly participant, within the sport on the time.
The luck of the sport intended that giant amounts of ivory have been had to produce the balls, to the purpose the place in 1867 the New York Instances warned that the call for for elephant tusks may put the animals prone to extinction. On the lookout for another subject matter, Phelan presented an peculiar praise: $10,000 price of gold to whoever may discover a appropriate replace for the ivory. This award would perpetually be…
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Author : bq3anews
Publish date : 2026-03-25 13:29:00
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