Philo T. Farnsworth

• It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph or a steam engine or a phonograph or a photograph or a telephone or any other important thing - and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others.
• Mark Twain to Helen Keller, March 17, 1903.

Mark Twain pretty much hit the nail right on the head as to why most people don't know who Philo T. Farnsworth was. The invention for which Philo has been receiving somewhat belated credit for is that most mixed of mixed blessings of modern civilization,

TELEVISION

However, Philo didn't invent television.

But he did invent television.

Which admittedly doesn't make much sense. But to find the answer to this apparent conundrum, read on!

Actually, the conundrum is pretty easy to un-conundrum. Mostly because the definition of "television" is itself rather vague. Some histories mention that the telly became reality only in the late 1940's.

However, such assessment refers to wireless transmission of moving images produced from a commercially viable consumer product. Before then, there were TV sets but they were crude, expensive, and no one would want one. But even before then, there was a lot of work going on for decades - almost a century - for "facsimile transmission". This is the transmission of pictures but not necessarily moving pictures.

Almost since the invention of the telegraph - which itself was a long drawn out process - people wondered about sending pictures using that new fangled technology called electricity. And as early as the 1860's it was possible to send facsimiles of handwriting over electric wires. True, the images weren't that great and sometimes were illegible. So the telegraph with it's dot-and-dash Morse code remained preferred for fast and long distance communication, and later developments of the telegraph were still routinely used well into the mid-20th century.

But at least the early halting steps on sending images did focus attention on what was needed to make the process work. Eventually, facsimile transmission was achieved.

But how is it actually done? We'd really like to know that.

I thought you would, as Captain Mephisto said to Sydney Brand. It's very simple really and so here are some basics.

The trick is to have light of different intensities generate pulses of varying electrical energy. Then you send the pulses over a wire and then (somehow) reconvert then image.

Simple, no?

Well, sort of.

Image transmission became possible with the discovery of the photovoltaic effect. The discovery was made by in 1830 by the the French physicist Alexander Edmond Becquerel, who was the dad of the (more) famous French scientist Henri Becquerel who is often credited with discovering the phenomenon of radioactivity.

The photovoltaic effect is when some electrons of a material go to a higher energy level when the atoms are hit by light. The electrons don't get knocked entirely out of the material which is what happens with the photoelectric effect. But the electrons are knocked high enough so they don't stick to any one atom. Since the activated electrons become mobile electrons the atoms become better conductors of electricity.

Photovoltaic materials are fairly common and nowadays modified ceramic materials do the job. But in the olden days the scientists found cells made from selenium worked quite nicely, thank you.

OK. Take a bit of photovoltaic material and make it into a small wafer. Then put it in as part of an electrical circuit. Then stick in a battery and a light bulb. The bulb will light up.

Now stick in a resistor. With enough resistance the light will go dim.

Now shine some light on the photocell. This will kick up some electrons in energy so they become mobile. Since you now have more moveable electrons on one side of the battery, you get an increase in the voltage and so more current. So light gets brighter. Shine on more light, and the bulb gets brighter still.

And to transmit an image?

Well, you can make a plate of a small photoelectric cells arranged in rows up and down the plate. Each small cell is then made part of its own electric circuit with its own light bulb. And the light bulbs are also arranged in a grid where each bulb is at the same place as it's corresponding photocell.

So if you take a photographic film (or glass plate) and shine its image onto the grid, the darker parts of the image block out the light depending on how dark the part of the picture is. So you get different intensities of light falling on different cells. Each cell then establishes a different voltage across its circuit depending on the intensity of the light impinging thereupon (fancy phrasing here).

And the light bulbs on the bulb grid will then light up. But since the brightness depends on the current - and current is directly proportional to voltage - the brightness of each light will vary depending on how much light is shining on its photocell on the first plate.

So if no light falls on the photocell, you get no light from the bulb. But if there's a lot of light reaching the photocell, you get a lot of light coming from the bulb. The combined light and dark bulbs will form the image.

Now focus the light from all the bulbs onto a photographic film. Develop the film and lo! you now have a facsimile of the image transmitted over the wires (Click on the pictures above to see what we mean.)

OK. But what about moving pictures, for crying out loud!

Well, in principle it's simple. Just make the photocell and light bulb "responsive" enough so there is no "lag" in the voltage changes or change in the light bulb's intensity. Projecting a transparent motion picture film on the transmitting plate would send the images to the receiver which would then display a moving picture.

As for a live transmission, remember that we see most objects by reflected light. So if the light is strong enough, focused and reflected light would still activate the photocells. With the continuous changes in voltage, you would see a moving picture.

Simple, no?

Well, no.

For one thing as you can see from the drawing, the image can be, well, "grainy" is the word. True, you can get a better picture by having more photovoltaic cells but that means you need to have smaller cells or a larger grid. And in those olden days this wasn't easy since that means you'd have a whole (boat)load of wires running from the transmitter and the receiver.

So for a high quality image you would need hundreds of individual wires for a small image and thousands for a large one. For a television of high definition that would cover a wall, you'd need millions and millions of circuits.

But who the heck would want that?

In any case, in 1884 a young German inventor named Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow realized you could simplify the electronics if you took advantage of the phenomenon known as persistence of vision. This means that the human eye - or the retina - will keep seeing an image for a brief time when the image is no longer there.

So if sequential parts of an image can be projected individually to different parts of a screen, the viewer would see the entire image as one. And with the right methods, the image could be also made to move.

The way to achieve this effect, Paul said, is to make a flat disk with holes arranged in a spiral. This would project only a part of the image to the detector at any given time.

As the wheel rotates the next hole moves into the beam and allows the next small part of the picture to be projected onto the photocell. As the wheel continues to spin, the whole picture would then be broken up into little dots (or squares) that would be translated into light beams of different intensities hitting the detector. So the picture is coded as a sequence of voltage changes which produce varying current. This current then passes through a light bulb - you only need one - that changes its intensity proportionally to changes in the current.

To reconstruct the image, you have another wheel with the same pattern of spiral holes as the first one. Since the holes and rotation of the wheels are synchronized, if the light that passes through the holes falls on a screen, they will light up the screen at slightly different times and places but that match up with the original image. In other words, the first wheel "scans" the image and the second wheel projects it onto a screen.

But remember. With the eyes' persistence of vision - and a bit of help from a lag in the photocells and light bulbs - if the wheels spin fast enough, the viewer would see the whole image on the screen. True, it might be grainy, faint, and flickering, but it's still a moving image.

Although Paul patented what is now called the Nipkow Wheel, he never made a working model. (A working model, contrary to popular opinion, is not required to obtain a patent). But other inventors quickly took up the challenge.

And now enter ...

Nope, not Philo, but ...

John Logie Baird.

John was a young Scottish engineer and is largely credited with getting the Nipkow wheel idea to actually transmit what we now call "greyscale" pictures. This was in 1925. Before then the transmitted images were black and white outlines or silhouettes.

Notice that so far we've been talking about what we would call close circuit television - that is the transmitter and receiver are connected by wires. However, by the 1920's wireless communication - which is also sending signals of different intensity over the air - had been developed so that wireless television was feasible.

Although it wasn't easy, John gradually got people interested in his television (the word was being used even then), and in 1928 he formed his own company. That year he broadcast the first television image across the Atlantic, and in 1930 there was an actual broadcast of a television program, for crying out loud! In a few years the BBC stepped in and used John's system to start up its television network which is still going.

We see, then, that although you may read that this "mechanical" television was too difficult to implement, that's not really true. The first commercial televisions were mechanical. Soon television was broadcasting reasonably clear and even color images.

The main problem was the practical limitations to the quality of the image. The equipment needed was also too large to be something people would want for their own home, Mechanical television, if not actually a dead end, was certainly reaching diminishing returns.

And now enter .....

Nope, not Philo ... but a Russian immigrant named Vladimir Zworykin.

Vladimir Zworykin (pronounced zvahr-EE-kin) was an electrical engineer working for Westinghouse. In 1923 he was trying to improve television but knowing that the mechanical machines had inherent limitations, he turned to a newfangled device but one of venerable heritage. This was the cathode ray tube.

A CRT (as it's called for brevity) sends a beam of electrons across a vacuum to hit on a fluorescent screen at the other end of a tube. But in the tube a changing electric field deflects the electrons. If you have the field change in the proper manner, the electrons move in lines across the screen and from top to bottom.

By now everyone knew that scanning was the key to television. Vladimir figured that if you had some kind of camera which would affect the voltage of the CRT, then the number of electrons hitting a part of the screen would vary and so the brightness at that point on the screen would differ from the others. Do it right, and you have a picture.

To this end, Vladimir invented what he called the iconoscope. This was a tube where an image is focused onto a fluorescent screen which was then scanned by a cathode ray. The way the CRT electrons interacted with the light and dark parts of the screen altered the voltage in the circuit. The electric signals were then sent to another cathode ray tube to reproduce the image. Vladimir filed his patent for his "all electronic television" in 1923.

So that pretty much settles who invented the modern television, doesn't it?

Alas, no. Vladimir's attempt at a demonstration to Westinghouses' bigwigs was not crowned with success. Completely unimpressed, the Bigwigs told Vladimir to stop wasting his [dang] time and get his [rear end] back to the lab and work on something useful for a change. Abashed Vladimir went back to the lab where he kept working to improve the iconoscope.

And now enter .....

Nope, not Philo ... but another Russian immigrant named David Sarnoff.

On the Fount of All Knowledge, you'll read of David Sarnoff as the Big Bad Wolf of American Electronic Entertainment Enterprises. David, you might think, was a corporate mogul who would crush any competition by fair means or foul.

The truth is David's story is - if not exactly a rags to riches tale - one of lower middle class to megabucks. As a young man, he was not only industrious and ambitious but also had the knack to see where the technological future was heading. And if it wasn't heading where he wanted, by golly, he would MAKE it head where he wanted.

By the early 20th century, David had become a radio operator for the new Marconi Wireless Company and later - as is necessary for someone wanting to be in charge - he moved into management. And again as is common with people wanting to be in charge, he went to work for a new company, Radio Corporation of America. David rapidly rose in the ranks, and by 1925, he was president of RCA.

David's vision was to have a radio in every home. The more viewers, he thought, the more money he'd make. This strategy now seems obvious, but that wasn't the way everyone saw it. David was right, of course, and RCA became one of the few companies to actually grow during the Great Depression.

Naturally David knew all about the advances in television. And again backing a winning horse, he encouraged his engineers to work on making a real television which could be put in every home. And yes, Vladimir, went from Westinghouse to RCA where he worked to improve his iconoscope.

We have to give David his due credit. He was willing to sink a lot of time and money into long term research. But he also chose his long term projects with an eye to what would eventually turn a profit. A big profit. A VERY big profit.

And NOW enter ...

Yes, Philo T. Farnsworth.

Philo was born in a log cabin ...

Yes, Philo really was born in a log cabin. That was in 1906 in Utah. As a kid he worked on his family's farm but showed marked ability in science. Although he enrolled at Brigham Young University, he had to drop out to support his family.

The first two decades of the 20th century was a time when intelligent young people with litte formal education could still be credible inventors. And early on Philo studied the still emerging field of electronics. At the age of 14 he had a discussion with his chemistry teacher on ideas of how to make an electronic television. This discussion would later turn out to be surprisingly important.

Some biographies on The Fount of All Knowledge make it seem that Philo made a quantum leap from pushing a plow to becoming an independent inventor. That's actually telescoping the events a bit but what Philo wrought was still pretty impressive. He worked at a number of jobs, which ranged from being a door to door salesman to briefly attending the US Naval Academy. He was then hired to work for the owners of a mail-order business, George Everson and Leslie Gorrell, in San Francisco.

George and Leslie learned of Philo's interest in television and were impressed with his gumption and his knowledge. They agreed to help him secure funding to develop his ideas and establish a research lab. Although they didn't put up the whole amount, they were able to land him over $30,000. That was good money at the time and quite generous for a research project.

Philo worked hard and eventually ended up with 1) an electronic TV camera he called an image dissector, 2) a TV screen that would display the image, and 3) over 200 US patents (albeit not all were for television).

Out of the 200 plus patents, it was the one issued in 1927 that is what we would call Philo's definitive patent. This was for an all-electronic television system. And all would be well ...

... except ...

... except that Vladimir's patent application on the iconoscope was in 1923. Four years before Philo's.

Philo's patent - which was actually from Westinghouse - was arguably establishing the priority for the basic invention of electronic television. Philo could make all the "improvements" he liked. But he could not, RCA said, - that's NOT! NOT! NOT! - claim to have invented electronic television.

However, at that time the priority of a US invention was NOT the date of filing for the patent (as it is now). Instead, it was the date of invention. Even though Vladimir's patent wouldn't issue until the 1930's, publication of the application would establish priority of the idea¹.

But ...

... and the big "buts" never end.

If an idea is discussed privately that's not a public disclosure. And so the idea may still be patentable. Moreover if the discussion can be documented, then it could be that the discussion actually marked the date of the invention.

So suppose Inventor A files a patent after Inventor B, but Inventor A can prove the invention was conceived before Inventor B filed. In principle, Inventor A could very well get the patent.

And remember it was around 1921 that Philo had sketched out his idea for electronic television to his chemistry teacher. That was, in fact, a documented non-public disclosure of the idea. Or at least it was documented and non-public enough for Philo to prevail in the patent courts.

We should point out that Philo also had reduction to practice working for him. That is, if you invent something you have to show that your invention does what it's supposed to do (the story is one inventor of a new potato peeler didn't get a patent because he didn't actually peel potatoes with it). Vladimir's demonstration had been scarcely a success, and yet in 1928 Philo had indeed demonstrated his all-electronic television would - as the commercials say - really, really work.

Philo got his patent.

And all would have been well.

... except ...

But remember there was David Sarnoff. He wanted television to be in RCA's pocket contra viento y marea. And David was not a man to be denied. If he couldn't prove priority of his own company in the patent wars, David figured every man had his price - that is, his price, David's.

In 1928 David offered Philo $100,000 for the rights to his patents. Philo said thanks, but no thanks. He then lined up with another company, the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company - later called Philco - and then he found support from the American Telephone and Telegraph Company - today better known as AT&T.

However, Philo retained considerable autonomy. And there's one problem with the "independent inventor" pathway. You not only have to have backers with the cash, if you don't show a return on investment (abbreviated as ROI), your backers get impatient and eventually will say they've put up enough dough. Soon both Philco and AT&T decided to let Philo re-establish his own company in 1938.

But RCA - then THE broadcasting corporation - had long been miffed that Philo had not thrown in with them. As long as his patents were out there, they were a pesky problem always lurking just over the horizon.

So RCA had begun challenging the validity of Philo's patents. That is, they claimed the Patent Office had made a mistake in granting Philo his patents. And if you can invalidate a patent you can practice what the patent preaches even if you can't patent it yourself.

However, invalidating patents is tough as issued patents are presumably valid. So in 1939 RCA threw in the towel and said, OK, we'll pay the lousy royalties for using Philo's image dissector.

But .... and you knew there would be yet another "but" ...

There's probably no type of patent more difficult to evaluate than those about electronics. Determining what is actually being invented, how broad or narrow the claims, what claims are "dependent" on someone else's patent, and such stuff is hard enough even if you're just examining a patent on a new type of motor for aerating a minnow bucket.

But try evaluating a patent about something like an apparatus for utilizing effects or disturbances transmitted through the natural media from a distant source, the combination of an electrical storage device, a charging circuit connected to and including a device sensitive to the action of the effects or disturbances and determining under their control the flow of current in the charging circuit, a receiving-circuit including a receiver, and means for periodically discharging the storage device through the receiving circuit. You've got quite a challenge even for expert examiners.

Naturally Vladimir had kept working on his iconoscope for RCA. And finally he developed a model that produced a better image than Philo's image dissector. Although some people might maintain that the new iconoscope used elements that were in Philo's dissector, any similarities were subtle enough that RCA could argue their iconoscope was a distinct invention. In any case, although Philo did establish his priority for "inventing electronic television", it was RCA that was showing "their" television system at the New York World's Fair in 1939.

But it became a moot point because there was soon to be a war on. World War II, that is, which sent television development to a screeching halt. Industries turned to supporting the war effort, and that did not mean doing research on a device that would soon turn the citizenry into a population of couch potatoes. Philo himself established a number of companies helping the Allies and he halted his work on television.

Of course after the war, RCA returned to full speed in putting a television into every home - even if television sets were so expensive they required payments on the installment plan. David, after all, was still in charge.

Philo also returned to the television business and founded a new company which began making television sets. This company was soon bought out by International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (known then as IT&T and now just ITT). Philo, though, was kept on as a vice-president of research, and the company was in business until 1965.

Philo moved back to Utah and worked at Brigham Young University which also awarded him an honorary doctorate. His research was funded mainly by his own company and he began to work on generating energy by fusion - ergo, making hydrogen atoms smash together to form helium plus a lot of energy.

Unfortunately, fusion, as we know now, has not been the panacea to the world's energy crisis it was hoped it would be. And if it was hard dredging up backers for television, Philo found that investors for fusion reactors were about as common as diamonds of the first water in a bull's fundament. Eventually Philo's company went out of business, and he died in 1971, pretty much broke.

If Philo had been born 50 years earlier there might have been a happier ending to his story. In the 19th century he might have moved from solitary inventor to the owner of a major company. But those days, if not gone, had become few and further between and inventors had become mostly employees of massive megalithic corporations. Even Charles Steinmetz, the "Electrical Genius of Liberty Hall", was a long time employee of General Electric.

Today there are curmudgeons who say that it's really only that champion Philo as the inventor of television. Philo, they say, was simply one out of many working on the problem. Although what he did was impressive given his background, ultimately they say it was others who actually produced the product that now dominates the world.

Philo, we must admit, did not invent television itself. But it is widely acknowledged - even by the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica - that he did give what is accepted as the first demonstration of the all-electronic television. On the other hand, modern television would have raised its head in any case. So we really can't blame Philo.

References

The Boy who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth, Kathleen Krull, Knopf, 2009.

"The Farmboy Who Invented Television", Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, August 28, 2017.

"Philo T. Farnsworth", Hall of Fame Television Academy, Lyndon Stambler, January 19, 2018.

"Philo Farnsworth and Green Street", Susan Saperstein, Guidelines.

A Pictorial History of Television, Irving Settel and William Laas Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1969.

"Television System", Vladimir K. Zworykin (Inventor), Westinghouse (Assignee), US 2,022,450, December 29, 1923 (Original Filing, Divided), November 26, 1935 (Issued).

A History of Early Television, Stephen Herbert, Taylor and Francis, 2004.