ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Camera obscura

Camera obscura is like a magical box that allows you to see a big picture of what's happening outside, inside a dark room. It works by having a tiny hole called a "pinhole" on one side of the box, and the other side is coated with a special material that can receive the image.

When light from outside goes through the pinhole, it enters the box and gets flipped upside down on the special material inside. It's like a big upside-down picture on the wall somehow! You can even move your hand in front of the pinhole, and the image will move along with it.

Long before people had cameras, they used camera obscura to draw and paint pictures of real-life scenes. By looking at the upside-down image on the wall, they could trace over it and create an accurate drawing of the outside world. How cool is that!?