Talk:Philo Farnsworth

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yo yo ws his fav toy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.111.164.8 (talk) 01:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Please add new discussion topics as sections as the bottom

Contents

[edit] Old discussion

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I have a question: the cathode ray tube article says it was invented by Karl Ferdinand Braun. This seems like an inconsistency with what is in this article. Could an explanation be included in the article as to how Braun figures in with Farnsworth? --Gary D 03:32, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Quote from this interview with Evan Schwartz, who has written a book about Farnsworth: "The idea of electronic television came to him while plowing a potato field on his family's farm in Idaho. ... Just think of it: the potato field led to the couch potato." -- Jim Regan 17:50, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The story about Farnsworth's plowed furrow inspiration for straight-line raster scan of images is interesting enough to be quoted in this Wikipedia article. Quicksilver 22:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

In response to the question: While Farnsworth and others are credited in creating the first televisions, they did not invent the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). It was, as you mentioned, Braun who invented it. When cathode ray tubes were first invented (discovered?), there was no practical use for them. Like many complex devices, the inventors of the television used a previously existing device and modified it in such a way that it had a practical use.

I'm not sure how to best go about explaining this in the article... or where to put that bit of information. Perhaps it belongs in the television article. A simplified diagram of the inner workings of a TV may be helpful. Or perhaps a comment that the CRT invented by Braun is not exactly the same as the ones used in TVs today.--Farmerjoe 19:54, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Need more detail about the end of Farnsworth's life. Could start by condensing the following paragraph from Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor down to a few sentences:

"Farnsworth then moved to Brigham Young University and tried to hire on most of his original lab from ITT into a new company. The company started operations in 1968, but after failing to secure several million dollars in seed capital, by 1970 they had burned through all of Farnsworth's savings. The IRS seized their assets in February 1971, and in March Farnsworth suffered a bout of pneumonia and died."

I haven't gone through the biographical manual o' style yet to see if there are standard-ish headings for biographical sketches -- but I guess I'll add this to my to-do-eventually list unless someone else wants to tackle it...? --dvgrn 06:08, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bravo for an article on Farnsworth! Most histories are written by RCA. You don't mention the controversy over whether Zvorikin stole the design. Comment? Trekphiler 16:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Zworklin, Farnsworth, and camera tubes

The Farnsworth Image Dissector and Zworklin's Iconoscope were both camera tubes. But they were quite different. The Image Dissector only used the photons that hit where the beam was scanning, so it integrated over one "pixel time", not a frame time. But the Image Dissector had a photomultiplier stage, so it got as many electrons as it could out of the few photons it detected.

The Iconoscope integrated over a frame time, using capacitance on the imaging plate, but didn't have a photomultiplier stage. Both devices had very poor light sensitivity.

When RCA finally acquired the rights to both approaches, (long legal story) RCA Labs developed the image orthicon tube. This was about what you'd expect from a corporate lab. It had both an integrating imageing plate, like the iconoscope, and a photomultiplier, like the image dissector. It was complicated, very expensive, and took about six different power supplies to drive. But it finally yielded a television camera with reasonable light sensitivity.

This really belongs in Video camera tube. --Nagle 18:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There are several good books on Farnsworth's invention of electronic television. It is very clear that Zworykin visited Farnsworth's lab under false pretenses, copied his image dissector at RCA, and said he wished he had invented it. Farnsworth's breakthrough was all his own, and the guys at RCA did everything they could to strip him of the rights and honor due for that. Anyone who wants to contradict that here would well to read one or more of these histories first. Dicklyon 05:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Boris Rosing's CRT display electromechanical?

There seems to be some confusion (mine mostly) about who first used a purly electronic (as opposed to electromechanical) device to display a televison image. If Boris Rosing is to displace Farnsworth as the "Father of Electronic Television" it would need to be shown that he displayed an image on a television screen using a purely electronic method (e.g. a CRT). It is known that Rosing displayed an image on a CRT screen prior to Farnsworth doing so and that he had the idea of CRT prior to Farnsworth. The question is WAS ROSING CRT IMAGE DISPLAY PURELY ELECTRONIC? It has been suggested that the answer is no (thereby invalidating his claim). I know for a fact that the CAMERA he used was mechanical, but we're not talking about cameras are we, we're talking about displaying the image. If we disregard the camera equipment used and look solely at the way an image is being displayed wouldn't that make Rosing the first person to display an image on a screen using purely electronic methods (e.g. CRT) ??? I'm not an engineer but the idea of a crt display being electromechanical seems odd to me, surely it wasn't was it? I understand that there were methods of displaying an image electromechanically by using a spinning disk or drum but if CRT is being used that must be electronic right?? ADVICE PLEASE!!!!

ADVICE: A Television system is composed of both the camera and the display. Without both, the "system" does not work at all. There is no dispute that Rosing's system used an electromechanical camera, although there is some lack of clarity about how his display worked... In any case, the display relied on the mechanical nature of the camera, and thus the display relied on electromechanical components.

[edit] Inventor?

Philo is only regarded as the inventor of TV in America. The rest of the world still recognises John Logie Baird as Television's father. Baird had a working model on display long before Farnsworth.

Rest of the world?? Parochially-minded scotsmen, maybe.
The most nations support there own inventors. That only shows how stupid it is to speak of one "father" of television. Many inventors were involed in the same way. In Germany neither Farnworth nor Baird are seen as "THE inventor" but as some of the many fathers of television. There are some fields in science which have an most important person, but this is definitly not true for television. The fathers of television are: de: Chronologie des Fernsehens

Parochially-minded scotsmen? Or anyone who pays attention to the timeline. Baird's system allowed him to capture a lot of 'firsts' for television. Farnsworth's invention was undoubtedly the better model, but came along after Baird had made significant achievements with his system.

The truth is much more interesting and complex than can be captured by a single 'father of television'; just for the record here, John Logie Baird is generally ackowledged to have made the first working television, and Phito T. Farnsworth the first working all-electronic television. Someone else (probably DIECKMANN, M., "The Problem of TeleVision - A Partial Solution", Scientific American. Supplement, 68, n. 1751, 24 July 1909, pp.61-62) had the first raster CRT display long before either, but lacked an electronic TV pickup tube, which was Farnsworth's invention.

[edit] The position in England and other matters

Baird is generally regarded as the inventor of "television" in the whole of the UK, by the general public that is. However the general public makes little or no distinction between electromechanical television and purely electronic television. I am happy mostly happy with the changes that have been made to the page to show a more rounded (less US-centric) representation of the "facts". It should be noted that I am an Englishman promoting the inclusion of Rosing (a non-Englishman) and therefore my intentions are not clouded by national pride. It should also be noted that I have nothing against the USA (in this instance) or Farnsworth but simply fear that a US-led internet can cause a US bias in the recording of history. Finally I think that it may add some clarity if we were to define one person as the inventor of the "electronic television camera" and another as the inventor of the "electronic television set". By "set" I mean a piece of equipment that can display a television signal. If we did this then maybe Farnsworth would hold the first title (inventor of the electronic television camera) and Rosing would hold the second (inventor of the electronic television set). Together both men could be regarded as the inventors of electronic television. Some would argue that a television set is only a television set if it can receive a signal which has been broadcast in some manner, such people may perfer to call Rosing the inventor of the Cathode Ray Tube Display ("monitor").


>> Philo's wife, Elma Gardner "Pem" Farnsworth, died on April 27, 2006, at the age of 98. 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

Apparently she died on May 2nd. Please follow this link:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12596707/

The obituary was written on May 2. It clearly states she died the previous Thursday (April 27).

[edit] Franklin Institute demonstrations, 1934

Although Farnsworth and others had worked on components of an all-electronic television system earlier, and had publicly demonstrated components of it, the Franklin Institute demonstrations were indeed the world's first public demonstration of a television system with all-electronic components at both the transmitting and receiving ends. See Television: An International History of the Formative Years, by R. W. Burns, pp. 370-376.

I welcome being corrected that there was an earlier demonstration, but please give place, date, and a source to verify this. — Walloon 03:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so it's public you're relying on. OK, but I think we should put in something about when he first had it working and demonstrated in private, too. Does your source have the dates? Dicklyon 03:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
You were the one who said there was an earlier private demonstration of an all-electronic system (transmitter and receiver). I am not aware of any such private demonstration. See above where I wrote, "I welcome being corrected that there was an earlier demonstration, but please give place, date, and a source to verify this." — Walloon 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I can dig it up from the various Farnsworth biographies; it was at his Green Street lab in San Francisco, probably years before he went to Philadelphia for a public demo. Are you saying that Television: An International History of the Formative Years doesn't say when Farnsworth first showed his system working? I'd be surprised. Dicklyon 05:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's one: the demonstration of the "$" image to his banker investors was done in August 1928. That's according to The Boy who Invented Television by Paul Schatzkin. Dicklyon 05:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Same book says first demonstrated 1927, first film chain (this is, input from movie film) 1929, 1930 a steady stream of visitors to his lab to see his demo, and "when he arrived at the Green Street loft on April 14 (1930), Zworykin was shown a clear, sharp picture with more than 300 scan lines per frame." That's the day Z said "This is a beautiful instrument. I wish I had invented it myself." Same story is in The Last Lone Inventor and other histories and biographies that have looked at Farnsworth's contributions. Dicklyon 05:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
And the NY Times of Sept. 4 1928 head "No revolving disk, receiver to retail at $100 or less. Cigar smoke plainly visible with man smoking." (quoted in item 1453 of Early Television: a bibliographic guide to 1940 by George Shiers). That's probably the first demo to public media involving a moving human subject. Dicklyon 05:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
A different account of the same event in Abrahamson's book:
Zworykin was given a demonstration of the entire system in operation. While he was pleased with the performance of the dissector tube [in the camera], he was not at all impressed with Farnsworth's magnetically focused receiving tube. Because it used a long, magnetic coil (a "thick lens") wrapped along the entire length of the tube, it could display only small (two and a half inch), dim pictures. Farnworth had no better luck with it than any of the other top scientists anywhere in the world.
What Zworykin called "a beautiful instrument" was Farnsworth's image dissector, not the receiver. The disparity between these two accounts shows why it's important to look at the first public demonstrations of inventions, where disinterested parties can give their own evaluation. — Walloon 05:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it was the image dissector. And looking at and comparing public demos is fine, too. But the key breakthrough that television had been looking for for decades was the device the Farnsworth invented, that Zworykin admired and copied. Dicklyon 05:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
By the way, the statement that he was "not impressed" and that Farnsworth "had no more luck..." could have only come from Zworykin himself, who was a major part of the RCA campaign to rewrite the history of television. So such statements should be carefully weighed and discounted appropriately, yes? Dicklyon 06:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Debating Farnsworth's Position in the Invention of Television

I removed about a paragraph's worth of "here's-why-I-don't-think-someone-else-deserves-credit-for-iventing-television" arguments, not because some of the points were invalid, but because they aren't anymore relevant to the Farnsworth article than they are to the Rosing article, or the Baird article, or the the Zworykin article, ad nauseum. Frankly, that's not only boring and repetitive, it just doesn't belong here (or in any of those articles either). Someone should start a seperate "WhyIBitchAboutWhoDeservesCreditForInventingTheTelevision" Article and you can all hash it out there. The statements removed not only maligned silly Americans for being simple-minded about this, but implied that *only* Americans could believe that Farnsworth should be held up as an inventor of television, and claimed that all "international historians" disagreed. None of this is verifiable fact (and is quite silly), despite the attempt to cite sources with opinions which uphold various others as television's inventor (duh. the article already admits as much).

People, this is an article about Philo Farnsworth. It's fine to mention that there is some controversy about his place in history and link to some common spot where the reader can find out more about that controversy, but to devote more ink to all the other contributors to the invention of television than to Farnsworth *in this article* is not only absurd, it's INTRACTABLY BORING.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Renauldo64 (talk • contribs)

I wouldn't go so far as to call it intractably boring, but I agree it's out of place. Thanks for removing it. Dicklyon 05:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Changed television to electronic television

I changed this because he didn't invent the first 'television' as such. Please leave it like this.

[edit] Eagle Scout

Are there sources? Can somebody tell about Philo Farnsworth involvement in Scouting?-Phips (talk) 22:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

philo farnsoworth the inventer of the tv. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.141.15.55 (talk) 00:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)