Lucien Bull

Early life

Born in Dublin, Ireland to British father, Cornelius Bull, and French mother, Gabrielle Joune, Bull lived his younger years in Dublin where he attended school and lived at home with his parents. Later in 1894, Bull moved to France to visit his aunts. After several months, Bull eventually settled in the area and became an assistant to Étienne-Jules Marey in 1895. At the time, Marey was working on the cinematographic, which was a camera that was shaped like a rifle and took pictures of moving objects from a rotating plate. This eventually became known as the “gun camera.”

This camera was designed to investigate the study of motion. Basically, this “gun camera” was designed to take an object in motion and snap still shots. By taking these still shots, each movement made by the object was captured and then studied to analyze movement patterns that were unable to be studied before. The first successful film was taken in 1904 when Bull was able to film the flight of a fly at 1,200 frames per second.

Successes

Marey died in May 1904. As a result of his death, Bull became head of the Marey Institute, which formed part of the Collège de France. While remaining with the Marey Institute, Bull was naturalized as a French citizen in 1931. After a few years, Bull eventually introduced a few papers on a wide variety of subjects ranging from spark illuminations, high-speed motion-picture photography, original studies of insect and bird flight, and electrocardiography and muscle and heart functions. His work was eventually listed by Dr. W. Hinsch in Research Film for December 1953.

Honors and Distinctions

Officer of the Legion of Honor (1954)
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1920)
Commander of the National Order of Mwit (1966)
Laureate of the French Academy of Sciences (Prix Leconte, 1955)
Gold Medal of the National Office of Research and Invention (1933)
Gold Medal of the Palace of Discovery (1937)
Gold Medal of the Society for the Encouragement of the National Industry (1947)
Director of the Marey Institute
Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (1955)
President of the Institute de Cinematographie Scientifique (1957)
Director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (1937)
Director in Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (1947)

Bibliography of Papers

December 1953- W. Hinsch: Research Film (biannual review)
No. 9 pp. 26–29 Göttingen
Feb. 29, 1904 - Motional mechanism of the insect wing, Comptes Rendus de I’Acadbmie des Sciences v. 138pp. 590–592
Mar. 21, 1904 - Application of the electric spark to the chrono- photography of rapid motions, Comptes Rendus v. 138 pp. 155–157
.June 11, 1904 - Chronophotography of rapid motions, Bulletin de la Sociktk Philomathiclue, Paris
Nov. 12, 1904 - Synthesis in chronophotography, Bulletin de la SociktC I’hhilomathiyue, Paris
Nov. 22, 1909 - Researches on the flight of the insect, Comptes Rendus v. 149pp. 942–944
June 10, 1910 - Inclinations of the wing surface of the insect dur- ing flight, Comptes Rendus v. 150pp. 129–131
1910 - On the motion of recording cylinders, ’I’rauauxde l’lnstitut Marey v. 2
1910- Chronophotography of rapid motions, Trauaux de l’lmtitut Marey v. 2
1911 - On simultaneous recordings on the phono- and electro-car- diogram, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology
May 6, 1912 On an optical illusion perceived at the moment of eye blinking, Comptes Rendus v. 154 pp. 1261–1253
May 1913 - Microscopic chronophot,ography,Journal de I%ysysio-et Pathologir g6nCrale.s
1913 - Synthesis of heart sounds by means of the wave siren, Demonstration to the Physiology Congress at Vienna
1914 - with Clerc and I’ezzi: electrocardiographic researches on the action of nicotine, Comptes Rendus (Soc. Biological) p. 82
1914 - with Clerc and Pezzi: Disturbances to the cardiac rhythm provoked by strontium chloride, Comptes Rendus (Soc. Bio- logical) p. 82
1915 - Method of location of (gun) batteries by sound ranging. Note submitted to the Soci6tB GCographique de l’ArmBe, Paris, and to the Sound Ranging Section, War Office, London (not printed)
Nov. 1919 - Application of chronophotography by electrical sparks to the study of ballistic phenomena, Official Bulletin of the Direction des Hecherches et Inventions, No. 1.48
Apr. 18, 1922 - Apparatus for the rapid dipociation of images in cinematography with electric sparks, Comptes Rendus, v. 174 pp. 1059–1061
July 17, 1922-J.Athanasius and L. Bull: Recording of the longi- tudinal vibrations of muscles during voluntary contraction, Comptes Rendus v. 175 pp. 181–183
June 4, 1923 - Photographic technique for bringing out weak de- formations in rectilinear objects, Comptes Hendus v. 176 pp. 1612–1613
1924 - Recent developments in high-speed cinematography. Lec- ture at Royal Society, London
1923- Cinematography(1vol.)ArmandColinseries,No.94,Paris
Feb. 26, 1931 - The welding arc in slow motion, Bulktin of the Society of Welding Engineers in France
Feb. 2, 1931 - S. Veil and L. Bull: Microscopic and cinematographic study of Iiesegang rings, Comptes Rendus v. 192, pp. 282–284
Mar. 16, 1931 - with S. Veil: Kinetic study of Liesegang rings, Comptes Rendus v. 192pp. 682–683
1931 - with S. Veil: Optical study of the secondary Liesegangrings, Comptes Rendus v. 192 pp. 1314–1315
1933 - Apparatus for the cinematographic analysis of rapid motions. Report of the 7th Reunion of the Association des Physiologistes, Liege
1934 - On the photographic exposure effectiveness of the electric spark, Reoue d’Optique th6orique et instrumentale v. 13 pp. 9–16
1934 - Cinematography using sparks, Revue d’Uptiquc thorique et instrumentalev. 13pp. 13–22
1934 - An optical assemblage for photographic recorders. Report to the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (not printed)
1934 - IJse of the string galvanometer as electrometer. Report to the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (not print- ed)
1935 - Photographic recording of the cirrulation speed of small animals. Report to the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (not printed)
1935 - A string galvanometer using a liquid jet, Comptes Rendus V. 2 0 0 ~1~18.4-1185
1935 - Optical recording of the second. Report to the Centre Na- tionale de la Recherche Scientifique (not printed)
1936 - with P. Girard: New cinematographic device for recording very rapid phenomena, Comptes Rendus v. 202 pp. 554–555
1936 - Recording of (animal) pulse frequency. Report to the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique
Nov. 8, 1937 - with P. Girard: Influence of electric and magnetic fields on the electric spark, Comptes Rendus v. 205 pp. 846–847
April 12, 1938 - The liquid jet string galvanometer, Jl. de Physio et Pathologie GI.nI.rales
1942 - On the obtaining of electric currents of short and well-de-fined duration. Report to the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (not printed)
1946 - Apparatus for the measurement of the accommodation time of the eye. Report to the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (not printed)
1946 - The determination of the minimum number of sound vi-
1947 - Contribution to the photographic technique of the shock wave C‘omptesRendus v. 225 pp. 405–406
1948- The measurement of very short time intervals between two sparks (’omptes Rendus v. 226 pp. 1353–1354
1950 - The cinematographic analysis of rapid motions (1,000,000 images/sec.) Mesure v. 15pp.329 333
1952- Optical device for the reception of cinematographic images at high frequency, Comptes Hmdua v. 235 pp. 1210–1211
Nov. 1952 - Optical device for the reception of cinematic images at high frequency, Krs FilmNo.1, p. I1