Abstract
TELEGRAMS from Paris on Monday state that the “Prix du Jockey Club” had resulted in what is usually called a “dead heat.” It is unnecessary for me to inform you, that there can be no such thing as a “dead heat” It is called so, I suppose, in consequence of a disagreement among the judges as to which horse first thrusts his nose beyond the winning-post. Are living judges any longer necessary to determine the results of a race? Five years ago I proposed to prove by indisputable evidence the winner of a trotting match which, in consequence of a dispute among the judges, had to be trotted over again. By means of a single thread stretched across the track, and invisible to either horses or their riders, twenty photographic cameras have been made to synchronously record positions impossible for the eye to recognise. With the aid of photography, the astronomer, the pathologist, the chemist, and the anatomist are enabled to pursue the most complex investigations with absolute confidence in the truth it reveals; why should those interested in trials of speed not avail them selves of the same resources of science? I venture to predict, in the near future that no race of any importance will be undertaken without the assistance of photography to determine the winner of what might otherwise be a so-called “dead heat.”
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MUYBRIDGE, E. “A Dead Heat”. Nature 26, 81 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026081b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026081b0
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