Every scientific discipline develops its own ways of making the invisible visible. Scientific instruments are not merely devices for observation; they shape the questions that can be asked, the phenomena that can be measured, and ultimately the theories that can be constructed.
Horizontal kymograph. In Marey, E.-J. (1885). La méthode graphique dans les sciences expérimentales et principalement en physiologie et en médecine. Paris: G. Masson..
The kymograph was a recording instrument widely employed in physiology and experimental psychology during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Consisting of a rotating drum covered with smoked paper (See image on the right) and driven at a constant speed, it transformed temporal events into permanent graphical records, allowing researchers to observe, measure and compare phenomena that would otherwise have remained transient. Although it has long since been replaced by digital acquisition systems, the kymograph remains one of the defining instruments in the history of experimental science.
Kymograph is my personal website, where I gather my research, teaching resources, demonstrations, tutorials and occasional reflections on perception, psychophysics and experimental psychology. It is intended to grow gradually over time, as new ideas, projects and materials find their way into it.