Philo Farnsworth

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Farnsworth was honored by the USPS

Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor. He was the first to demonstrate and patent a working electronic television system. He also invented the Fusor, a small fusion device. Philo Farnsworth died from pneumonia in 1971 at the age of 64.

[edit] History

Many inventors had worked on and built various electro-mechanical television systems prior to Farnsworth's seminal contribution (including, in chronological order, Alexander Bain, Paul Nipkow, Alexander Stoletow, Karl Ferdinand Braun, Boris Rosing, Herbert E. Ives, and, most notably, John Logie Baird). Several inventors also devised or built electronic apparatus prior to Farnsworth, including Boris Rosing, Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, Kalman Tihanyi, and Vladimir Zworykin. 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. For this reason, many Americans regard Farnsworth as electronic television's rightful inventor. This point is disputed by international historians who see the work of Campbell-Swinton, Vladimir Zworykin (with RCA) and Kalman Tihanyi as just as "seminal" to the international development of practical electronic television systems.^{[citation needed]} Another argument can be based on the fact that the first all-electronic cameras used for broadcast television (such as the UK Emitron) were successful because they use a 1926 Iconoscope patent of Kalman Tihanyi's, an idea fundamentally different from Farnsworth's 1927 Image Dissector patent.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Inventions

[edit] Television

Farnsworth worked out the principle of the Image Dissector television camera at age 14, and produced the first working version at age 21. 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.

• 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. 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 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.
• A statue of Farnsworth represents Utah in the National Statuary Hall Collection, located in the U.S. Capitol building.
• 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 being produced as an experimental play for the La Jolla Playhouse, California, to be staged in early 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.
• A plaque honoring Farnsworth is located near his former home in a historical district in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• 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.
• 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.

[edit] Patents

• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent ???????: Electric oscillator system (issued May 13, 1930)
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 1773980: Television system (filed Jan. 7, 1927, issued Aug. 26, 1930)
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 1773981: Television receiving system (issued Aug. 26, 1930)
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 2089054: Incandescent light source
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 2143262: Means of electron multipaction (filed Mar. 12, 1935, issued Jan. 10, 1939)
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 2184910: Cold cathode electron discharge tube
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 2221374: X-ray projection device
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 2246625: Television scanning and synchronization system (filed May 5, 1930, issued June 24, 1941)
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 2263032: Cold cathode electron discharge tube
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 3258402: Electric discharge device for producing interaction between nuclei
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 3386883: Method and apparatus for producing nuclear fusion reactions
• P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent 3664920: Electrostatic containment in fusion reactors

[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

• 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

• Official Homepage: “Philo. T Farnsworth Archives” (managed by Farnsworth heirs)
• National Inventors Hall of Fame profile
• Philo Farnsworth photo archive
• Rigby, Idaho: Birthplace of Television (Jefferson County Historical Society and Museum)
• The Boy Who Invented Television; by Paul Schatzkin
• Television Timeline
• Philo Farnsworth's Gravesite
• Biography resources dedicated to Philo Farnsworth