“Nam fit ut in somnis facere hoc videatur imago;
Quippe ubi prima perit alioque est altera nata
Inde statu, prior hic gestum mutasse videtur.
Scilicet id fieri celeri ratione putandum est:
Tanta est mobilitas et rerum copia tanta,
Tantaque sensibili quovis est tempore in uno
Copia particularum, ut possit suppeditare.
Titus Lucretius Carus (65 BC)
(De Rerum Natura: IV, 772-778)
"In fact, in dreams the image seems to do this:
when the first image has disappeared and so another appears
in another position, the first seems to have changed its posture.
Undoubtedly this must happen rapidly: the greater the movement,
the greater the multiplicity of images and the greater the
abundance of particles in any minimum instant of time
perceptible that are necessary to produce the effect.”
In describing dream vision in a few lines of On The Nature Of Things,
Titus Lucretius Carus (65 BC) gave a rudimentary statement of the
principle of the persistence of images on the retina, the secret of cinema.