A man with a crown of curly white hair lifts his eyes from a peculiar-looking device. “This is the Victorian sensation. This is a stereoscope. I look in here, and I see a heartbroken lady, waiting ...

Smitten with our little plastic View-Masters as kids, few of us baby boomers knew that our forebears amused themselves with their own three-dimensional gizmos. Before television, before radio, there ...

In today’s world, we seem to have moved away from what we could call traditional or old-fashioned forms of entertainment. With today’s streaming services, there is a constant flow of things to watch ...

It is quite possible that your grandparents had a 3D stereoscope tucked away in the attic or an old trunk. Today, stereoscopes and their view cards are quite collectable. On Thursday, William & Mary ...

Long before virtual-reality headsets, people were off virtually exploring the world from the comforts of their own homes. From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, people used stereoscopes ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...