Posted on 08/19/2006 8:14:35 AM PDT by Borges
Fish don't know they're living in water, nor do they stop to wonder where the water came from.
Humans? Not much better, as we share a world engulfed by television. And the deeper our immersion becomes, the less likely it seems we'll poke our heads above the surface and see there must have been life before someone invented TV.
That invisible someone was Philo T. Farnsworth, who was fated to live and work, then die, in sad obscurity. Now, on the centennial of his birth on Aug. 19, 1906, his invention plays an increasingly powerful role in our lives -- with less chance than ever of his being recognized.
How ironic. In this media-savvy age, not only should his name be as widely known as Bell's or Edison's, but his long, lean face with the bulbous brow should be as familiar as any pop icon's. He should be the patron saint of every couch potato. Instead, we regard TV not as a man-made contraption, but a natural resource.
Nonetheless, it was Farnsworth who conducted the first successful demonstration of electronic television.
The setting: Farnsworth's modest San Francisco lab where, on Sept. 7, 1927, the 21-year-old self-taught genius transmitted the image of a horizontal line to a receiver in the next room.
It worked, just as Farnsworth had imagined as a 14-year-old Idaho farm boy and math whiz already stewing over how to send pictures, not just sound, through the air. He had been plowing a field when, with a jolt, he realized an image could be scanned by electrons the same way: row by horizontal row.
The prodigy at his plow already had made a fundamental breakthrough, charting a different course from others' ultimately doomed mechanical systems that required a spinning disk to do the scanning. Yet Farnsworth would be denied credit, fame and reward for developing the way TV works to this day.
Even TV had no time for him. His sole appearance on national television was as a mystery guest on the CBS game show "I've Got a Secret" in 1957. He fielded questions from the celebrity panelists as they tried in vain to guess his secret ("I invented electronic television"). For stumping them, Farnsworth took home $80 and a carton of Winston cigarettes.
In 1971, Farnsworth died at age 64.
But his wife, Elma "Pem" Farnsworth, who had worked by her husband's side throughout his tortured career, continued fighting to gain him his rightful place in history, until her death earlier this year at 98.
Fleeting tribute was paid on the 2002 Emmy broadcast to mark TV's 75th anniversary. Introduced by host Conan O'Brien as "the first woman ever seen on television," Pem Farnsworth stood in the audience for applause on her husband's behalf.
It was a skimpy challenge to the stubborn misconception that the Radio Corporation of America was behind TV's creation. This is a version of history RCA already was promulgating as its president, David Sarnoff, was plotting to crush the lonely rival who stood in his way.
Ultimately, Farnsworth would go head to head with RCA's chief television engineer, Vladimir Zworykin, and a vast company whose boss had no intention of losing either a financial windfall or eternal bragging rights. With that in mind, Sarnoff waged a war not just of engineering one-upmanship, but also dirty tricks, propaganda and endless litigation.
In 1935 the courts ruled that Farnsworth, not Zworykin, was the inventor of electronic television.
But that didn't stop Sarnoff, who courted the public by erecting a wildly popular RCA Television Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair and, after announcing that the RCA-owned National Broadcasting Co. would expand from radio into TV, transmitted scenes from the fair to the 2,000 TV receivers throughout the city.
Thanks to Sarnoff, money woes and the lost years of World War II (which put TV broadcasting on hold), the clock ran out on Farnsworth's patents before he could profit from them.
Now, few even working in the industry that Farnsworth sparked know who he is. But one who does is Aaron Sorkin, the playwright, screenwriter and creator of "The West Wing" (as well as "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," a TV drama that probes the inner workings of a fictitious TV series, which premieres next month on NBC).
A decade ago, Sorkin briefly considered scripting a Farnsworth biopic. Later on, he opted to write a screenplay that instead would focus on the battle between Farnsworth and Sarnoff.
Then he decided a play would be the better form for this tale. The result, "The Farnsworth Invention," will have a workshop production at California's La Jolla Playhouse next winter, with a possible New York staging in fall 2007.
It's unlikely such a theater piece will make Farnsworth a household name. But as Sorkin wrote in a recent e-mail, "The story of the struggle between Farnsworth and Sarnoff seemed like a nice way to invoke the spirit of exploration against the broad canvas of the American Century."
The struggle between them was fierce and unfair. But in his sad fashion, Farnsworth won: The force unleashed as television was his doing, however blind the world may be to what he did.
Lee De Forest, (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor with over 300 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use of electronics.
He was involved in several patent lawsuits (and he spent a fortune from his inventions on the legal bills). He had four marriages and several failed companies, he was defrauded by business partners, and he was once indicted for mail fraud, but was later acquitted.
I walk, and it keeps me healthy.
How interesting that he was working on nuclear fusion later in life.
Andre-Marie Ampere
Otis Boykin
Rudolf Diesel
Thomas Edison
Michael Faraday
Benjamin Franklin
Luigi Galvani
William Gilbert
Otto von Guericke
Joseph Henry
Charles Franklin Kettering
Lewis Latimer
James Clerk Maxwell
Isaac Newton
Hans Christian Oersted
Georg Ohm
Lester Pelton
Charles Proteus Steinmetz
William Stanley, Jr.
Nikola Tesla
Alessandro Volta
George Westinghouse
Granville Woods
DeForest was his own worst enemy. He sold the rights to his grid patent to AT&T (for telephone repeater use) for the paltry sum of $50K (considering it's ultimate commercial value).
Philo jolt!
The lifestyle (sans TV) you have chosen is good for young children. The TV is often used as a baby sitter by too many parents, however it makes a wonderful sitter for some of us old farts.
i'm talking about the TV Screen / CRT Monitor you are reading THESE words on... and the technology used in getting them to your TV Screen / CRT Monitor is same-same BROADCAST TV except by wire instead of radio. p.s. i have a TV... but not hooked to anything except my VHS/DVD since 1999.
Neat.
There is an excellent book called "Tube" that covers the early history of television technology. I highly recommend it.
I've known since I was a teenager about Philo Farnsworth. My memory is hazy on the subject, but didn't he have something to do with Philip's?
'His sole appearance on national television was as a mystery guest on the CBS game show "I've Got a Secret" in 1957. He fielded questions from the celebrity panelists as they tried in vain to guess his secret ("I invented electronic television"). For stumping them, Farnsworth took home $80 and a carton of Winston cigarettes.
In 1971, Farnsworth died at age 64.'
Cigarettes, another genius deceived by big tobacco dies young.
> I do not have a TV, and haven't had one for decades: I used to have a TV once [for about 2 months], saw the kind of crap which was shown - and immediately got rid of that TV by donating it. May Farnsworth's name remain forgotten, or be held in abhorrence and detestation <
And may we presume that your computer lacks a monitor?
Thanks for the image.
I kinda thought that it occured to him sort of like at random while he was doing the boring and mundane task of plowing the field. Now I can see he how he got his idea...
> Famous Inventors Involved in the History of Electricity and Electronics <
You obviously don't give any significant credit to Messrs.
Hertz, Marconi, Fessenden and Armstrong, not to mention Yagi-San.
Shame, shame!
I stand corrected.
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