Many believe that the story first began in America in 1877, when two friends were arguing over whether a horse ever had all four feet or hooves off the ground when it galloped.

很多人认为这个故事最开始是发生在1877年的美国，两个朋友在争论马在奔跑的时候到底四只脚或者说蹄子能否同时离地。

To settle the bet, a photographer was asked to photograph a horse galloping and the bet was settled because you could see that all the hooves were off the ground in some of the photos.

为了解决打的这个赌，他们邀请来一个摄影师拍摄马奔跑的照片，因为在某些照片中你可以看到所有的马蹄子都离开了地面，于是这个问题也就解决了。

What was even more interesting was that if the photos were shown in quick succession the horse looked like it was running - in other words 'moving pictures'.

更加有趣的事情是如果这些照片被快速的连续播放时，这只马看上去很像是在奔跑，换句话说也就是“会动的图片”。

The person who became interested in taking the moving pictures to its next step was the famous American inventor Thomas Edison.

开始对这件事感兴趣，并且想把这种会动的图片进一步发展的人是著名的美国发明家托马斯爱迪生。

Actually, he didn't do the work himself but rather asked a young Scotsman in his employ to design a system, which he did.

事实上，他并没有亲自做这件事，而是找来一个他雇佣的年轻苏格兰人来设计一个系统，而且这个年轻人做到了。

Now this young fellow was clever because the first thing he did was study other systems - primitive as they were - of moving pictures and then put all the existing technologies together to make the first entire motion picture system

这个年轻的伙计很聪明，因为他做的第一件事是研究其他系统，或者说是早期的电影系统，然后他把当时所有现存的技术整合在一起来制造了第一个完整的电影系统。

He designed a camera, a projection device and the film.

他设计了摄影机、投影设备以及电影。

The system was first shown in New York in 1894 and was really very popular.

这个系统第一次展示是在1894年的纽约，而且非常受欢迎。

Apparently people lined up around the block to see the wonderful new invention.

很显然人们在整个街区排起长队来观摩这个奇妙的新发明。

There were, however, a couple of problems with the system.

当然了，系统还是存在一些问题的。

The camera weighed over 200 kilograms and only one person at a time could see the film.

这个摄像机重超过200公斤，而且每次只有一个人能够观看电影。

Well now, news of the new system in America travelled fast and a number of rival European system started to appear once people had heard about it.

紧接着，美国这个新系统的消息传播的很快，当欧洲人听说这个系统之后欧洲也出现了一些与其竞争的系统。

The single problem with all the systems was they couldn't really project the film onto a screen - you know, so more than one person could see it.

当时所有系统的共同问题是他们都不能把电影投射到一个屏幕上，以方便让更多的人观看。

Then in 1895 three systems were all developed, more or less at the same time and independently of each other.

直到1895年有三个电影系统发展到新的阶段，差不多是同一个时间，不过相互都是独立存在的。

I guess the most famous of these was by the Lumiere Brothers from France, and they called their system the cinematograph which of course is where the word cinema comes from.

我估计当时最著名的系统是法国的卢米埃尔兄弟制造出来的，他们把系统叫做电影院图画，也就是电影院这个词的前身。

There were also two brothers in Germany who developed a successful system and they called it a bioskop.

与此同时，德国也有一对兄弟造出了一个成功的电影系统，他们把它叫做bioskop放映机。

Well now, once the problem of projection had been solved, the next challenge for the inventors was to make the films longer and more interesting.

后来当投影的问题被解决之后，对于发明者来说下一个挑战则是需要把电影拍的长一些而且更加有趣。

A continuing problem at the time was that the films had a tendency to break when they were being played - a problem which was caused by the tension between the two wheels or 'reels' as they are called, which hold the film.

当时有一个一直存在的问题是这些电影在播放的时候总有断断续续的毛病，问题主要是由系统的两个轮子或者叫轮轴之间存在的张力导致的，这个问题也就使播放出现停顿了。

Now this problem was solved by two American brothers.

后来这个问题是被两个美国兄弟解决的。

They developed the 'Lantham Loop', which was the simple addition of a third reel between the two main reels, and this took all the tension away with the result that the film stopped snapping.

他们发明出一个“蓝瑟姆轮轴”，就是在两个主轮轴之间添加了一个第三者副轮轴，这个副轮轴去除了之前两个主轮轴间的张力，并且使得电影不再卡顿。