Philo Farnsworth

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Farnsworth was honored in 1983 by the USPS
Farnsworth was honored in 1983 by the USPS

Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor best known for being the first person to demonstrate and patent a working electronic television system, a system which still serves as the basis for the current cathode ray tube television devices. He also invented the Fusor, a small fusion device. Philo Farnsworth died from pneumonia in 1971 at the age of 64.

Contents

[edit] History

Many inventors had worked on and built various electro-mechanical television systems prior to Farnsworth's seminal contribution (including Alexander Bain, Paul Nipkow, Aleksandr Stoletov, Karl Ferdinand Braun, Boris Rosing, Herbert E. Ives, and John Logie Baird). Several inventors also devised or built electronic apparatus prior to Farnsworth, including Boris Rosing, Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, Kalman Tihanyi, Vladimir Zworykin and Kenjiro Takayanagi. Farnsworth made the world's first working television system with electronic scanning of both the pickup and display devices, which he first demonstrated to news media in 1928, and to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on August 25, 1934.

In 1930, after a visit to Farnsworth's laboratory, Vladimir Zworykin copied this apparatus for RCA. Key aspects of Farnsworth's 1930 camera and receiver designs remain in use today.

[edit] Early life

Farnsworth was born near Beaver, Utah on August 19, 1906. His father later moved the family to Rigby, Idaho, where he worked as a sharecropper. When they moved to their new home, Philo was apparently excited to find it was wired for electrical power, something that was still fairly rare at that point, at least in the countryside. Young Philo developed an early interest in electronics after his first telephone conversation with an out-of-state relative and the discovery of a large cache of technology magazines in the attic of the family’s new home. He excelled in chemistry and physics at Rigby High School, and produced sketches and prototypes of electron tubes. Philo took violin lessons from Reuben Wilkins in Ucon, Idaho. Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he decided to enroll in the church-run Brigham Young University in 1923.

After a brief stint in the Navy, Farnsworth returned to Idaho to help support his mother. He later moved to the San Francisco Bay area with his bride, Elma “Pem” Gardner Farnsworth (February 25, 1908 - April 27, 2006). A local philanthropist managing a community chest agreed to fund Farnsworth's early television experiments (see below).

In 1926, Farnsworth formed a research partnership with George Everson in Salt Lake City to develop Farnsworth's television ideas. Farnsworth moved to Los Angeles to carry out research.

On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth's Image Dissector camera tube transmitted its first image, a simple straight line, at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco. The source of the image was a glass slide, backlit by an arc lamp. This was due to the lack of light sensitivity of the Image Dissector tube design. By 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press. The first image shown to them was a dollar sign. In 1929, the system was further improved by elimination of a motor generator; the television system now had no mechanical moving parts. That year, Farnsworth transmitted the first human images using his television system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife with her eyes closed.

In 1930, Vladimir Zworykin, who had been developing his own all-electronic television system at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, since 1923, was recruited by RCA and visited Farnsworth's laboratory under false pretenses. Zworykin was impressed with the performance of the Image Dissector and had his engineers make a working copy of it. In 1931, David Sarnoff of RCA offered to buy Farnsworth's patents for $100,000, but was refused; in June of that year Farnsworth joined the Philco company and moved his laboratory to Philadelphia, along with his wife and two children.

When Farnsworth traveled to England in 1932 while raising money in his legal battles with RCA, he met with John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor who had developed mechanical-scan cameras, and was seeking to develop electronic television receivers. Baird demonstrated his mechanical system for Farnsworth. According to Farnsworth accounts, Baird explained "the superiority of his system to Farnsworth", but after watching several minutes of Farnsworth's version, he left the room without a word, "having realized the futility of his efforts". Baird had in fact supported a merger with Farnsworth's competitors in the U.K., Marconi. Marconi had a patent-sharing agreement with RCA, however Baird company directors decided instead to merge with Farnsworth. Baird's company directors paid Farnsworth $50,000 to supply electronic television equipment, and provide access to Farnsworth's television patents. Baird and Farnsworth competed with EMI for forming the standard UK television system. EMI however, merged with Marconi in 1934, gaining access to the RCA patents. After trials of both systems, the BBC committee chose the Marconi-EMI system, which was by then virtually identical to RCA's (Zworykin's) system.

Philco denied Farnsworth time to travel to Utah to bury his young son Kenny, who died in March 1932; this death put a strain on Farnsworth's marriage and may have marked the beginning of his struggle with depression. Since RCA controlled key patents and manufacture of radio tubes, Philco was persuaded to sever its relationship with Farnsworth in 1934.

By 1936, Farnsworth's company was transmitting regular entertainment programs experimentally. In 1939, Farnsworth sold his television patents to RCA Victor for $1 million. The New York World's Fair showcased electronic television sets in April 1939, and soon afterward, RCA electronic televisions went on sale to the public.

[edit] Inventions

[edit] Electronic television

Farnsworth worked out the principle of the image dissector television camera at age 14, and produced the first working version at age 21. A farm boy, his inspiration for the scanning lines of the cathode ray tube came from the back-and-forth motion used to plow a field. During a patent lawsuit against RCA, his high school chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, reproduced a drawing Farnsworth, when he was just 14, had made on the blackboard at the school. Farnsworth won the suit and was paid royalties but never became wealthy. The video camera tube developed from a combination of the work of Farnsworth and Zworykin, was used in all television cameras until the late 20th century, when alternate technologies such as charge-coupled devices started to appear.

Farnsworth developed the "image oscillite", a cathode ray tube receiver that could display images captured by the image dissector.

[edit] Fusor

The Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor, or simply fusor, is an apparatus designed by Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion. Unlike most controlled fusion systems, which slowly heat a magnetically confined plasma, the fusor injects high temperature ions directly into a reaction chamber, thereby avoiding a considerable amount of complexity.

When Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor was first introduced to the fusion research world in the late 1960s, the Fusor was the first device that could clearly demonstrate it was producing any fusion reactions at all. Hopes at the time were high that it could be quickly developed into a practical power source. However, as with other fusion experiments, development into a power source has proven difficult. Nevertheless, the fusor has since become a practical neutron source and is produced commercially for this role.

[edit] Appearances on television

Although he was the man responsible for its technology, Farnsworth appeared only once on a television program. In 1957, he was a mystery guest on the TV quiz show I've Got A Secret. He fielded questions from the panel of celebrities as they unsuccessfully tried to guess his secret ("I invented electronic television."). For stumping the panel, he received $80 and a carton of Winston cigarettes.[1]

In a 1996 videotaped interview by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, available on Google video, Elma Farnsworth recounts Phil's change of heart about the value of television, after seeing how it showed man walking on the moon, in real time, to millions of viewers:

Interviewer: The image dissector was used to send shots back from the moon to earth.
Elma Farnsworth: Right.
Interviewer: What did Phil think of that?
Elma Farnsworth: We were watching it, and, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, Phil turned to me and said, "Pem, this has made it all worthwhile." Before then, he wasn't too sure.

[edit] Memorials

The plaque on Green Street.
The plaque on Green Street.
  • In 2006, Farnsworth was posthumously presented the Eagle Scout award when it was discovered he'd earned it but had never been presented with it. The award was presented to his wife, Pem, who died four months later.[2]
  • Philo's wife, Elma Gardner "Pem" Farnsworth, died on April 27, 2006, at the age of 98.[3] Farnsworth always gave his wife equal credit with himself for creating television, saying "my wife and I started this TV." It was Elma who fought for decades to assure Farnsworth's place in history after his death in 1971.
  • A statue of Farnsworth represents Utah in the National Statuary Hall Collection, located in the U.S. Capitol building.
  • The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker located at 1260 E. Mermaid Lane, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania commemorating the "Farnsworth Television" shop established there in the summer of 1933. The Plaque reads "Inventor of electronic television, he led some of the first experiments in live local TV broad-casting in the late 1930s from his station W3XPF located on this site. A pioneer in electronics, Farnsworth held many patents and was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame."
  • A plaque honoring Farnsworth as The Genius of Green Street is located on the 202 Green Street location (37.80037N, 122.40251W) of his research laboratory in San Francisco, California.
  • The scenic "Farnsworth Steps" in San Francisco lead from Willard Street (just above Parnassus) up to Edgewood Avenue, passing Farnsworth's former residence at the top.
  • A plaque honoring Farnsworth is located near his former home in a historical district in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
  • Farnsworth's television-related work, including an original TV tube he developed, are on display at the Farnsworth TV & Pioneer Museum at 118 W. 1st S. Rigby, Idaho.
  • A Farnsworth image dissector is on display at Fry's Electronics in Sunnyvale, California, along with other artifacts of the history of electronics in Silicon Valley.
  • The Philo Awards named after Philo Farnsworth is an annual Public access television competition where the winners receive notice for their efforts in various categories in producing Community Media.
  • The West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin has written a screenplay about Farnsworth's and RCA's conflict, The Farnsworth Invention. It was originally to be produced as a film, however production was abruptly cancelled in 2005 with no explanation. It is now been produced as an experimental play for the La Jolla Playhouse, California, which opened to a standing ovation on February 20, 2007. Sorkin's earlier work, Sports Night, features William H. Macy telling a fictionalized anecdote about Farnsworth.
  • The character Professor Farnsworth on the popular animated series Futurama was named after him. The character Philo from UHF was also named after him, as he works in a television station. Oliver Farnsworth, a character in the Walter Tevis novel The Man Who Fell to Earth was also named after him.
  • Farnsworth appears as a fictionalized character in Glen David Gold's novel Carter Beats the Devil, in which television gets its first application as part of a magician's stage show.

[edit] Patents

[edit] Misquote

Although Philo T. Farnsworth is sometimes quoted as telling his son Kent, with regard to television:

“There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet.”

His family's website makes it clear that this is Kent's summation of his father's view, rather than a quote.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Schatzkin, Paul. The Farnsworth Chronicles. Farnovision.com. Retrieved on September 8, 2006.
  2. ^ (Fall 2006) "TV Pioneer Recognized as Eagle Scout". Eagletter Vol:32 (No:2): pp: 10. 
  3. ^ Hummel, Debbie. "Elma Farnsworth, widow of TV pioneer, dies at 98", Daily Herald, Daily Herald and Lee Enterprises, 4/28/2006, pp. D5. Retrieved on January 5, 2007. (in English)
  • Donald G. Godfrey, Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television, University of Utah Press, 2001, ISBN 0-87480-675-5
  • Paul Schatzkin, "The Boy Who Invented Television" Teamcom Books, Silver Spring MD (2002) ISBN 1-928791-30-1
  • Evan I. Schwartz, "The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit & the Birth of Television" HarperCollins, New York, USA (2002) ISBN 0-06-621069-0
  • David E. Fisher and Marshall J. Fisher, Tube, the Invention of Television Counterpoint, Washington D.C. USA, (1996) ISBN 1-887178-17-1
  • Daniel Stashower, The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television Broadway Books, New York, USA (2002) ISBN 0-7679-0759-0

[edit] External links

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