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Who2 Biography:

Philo T. Farnsworth

, Inventor

  • Born: 19 August 1906
  • Birthplace: Beaver County, Utah
  • Died: 11 March 1971
  • Best Known As: Inventor of the all-electronic television

Name at birth: Philo Taylor Farnsworth

Philo T. Farnsworth is now known as the inventor who didn't get enough credit for devising the first all-electronic television. Largely self-educated, Farnsworth grew up on farms in Utah and Idaho. As a boy he took an interest in electricity and electrons, and it's said he came up with the idea of electronically scanning images for transmission while he was in high school. He studied at Brigham Young University for two years (1923-25), but family responsibilities cut his college career short. With funding from friends and associates, Farnsworth moved to California to work on his dream of an electronic television system (earlier inventions had relied on mechanical parts). In 1927, at his lab in San Francisco, Farnsworth's "Image Dissector" transmitted the first electronic television image -- a straight line -- to a charged screen. Farnsworth spent the next decade arguing over patent rights in legal battles with David Sarnoff and engineer Vladimir Zworykin of RCA. In 1934 the U.S. Patent Office sided with Farnsworth, and in 1939 he sold his various patents to RCA. Although Farnsworth was awarded more than a hundred patents related to television, he did not become famous as "the inventor of television." Now it is generally agreed that the development of television involved many individuals, but it is also the consensus that Farnsworth deserves the lion's share of the credit.

 
 
Biography: Philo T. Farnsworth

Philo T. Farnsworth (1906-1971) is known as the father of television by proving, as a young man, that pictures could be televised electronically.

On the statue erected in his honor in the U. S. Capitol Statuary Hall, Philo T. Farnsworth is called the Father of Television. He was the first person to propose that pictures could be televised electronically, which he did when he was 14 years old. By the time he was 21, Farnsworth had proved his ideas by televising the world's first electronically-produced image. From the day he sketched out for his high school chemistry teacher his ideas for harnessing electricity to transmit images, until his death in 1971, Farnsworth amassed a portfolio of over 100 television-related patents, some of which are still in use today.

Farnsworth was born in Indian Creek, Utah, on August 19, 1906. The first of five children born to Serena Bastian and Lewis Edwin Farnsworth, he was named after his grandfather, Philo Taylor Farnsworth I, the leader of the Mormon pioneers who settled that area of southwestern Utah. Although there was no electricity where he lived, Farnsworth learned as much as he could about it from his father and from technical and radio magazines. Lewis Farnsworth was a farmer and regaled his son with technical discussions about the telephone, gramophone, locomotives, and anything else the younger Farnsworth was curious about. When the family moved to a farm in Idaho with its own power plant, he poked and probed and mastered the lighting system and was soon put in charge of maintaining it. It had never run so smoothly. Farnsworth was adept at inventing gadgets even before he went to high school, and he won a national invention contest when he was 13 years old.

Dreaming of Television

In 1920, he read that some inventors were attempting to transmit visual images by mechanical means. For the next two years, he worked on an electronic alternative that he was convinced would be faster and better; he came up with the basic design for an apparatus in 1922. Farnsworth discussed his ideas and showed sketches of the apparatus to his high school chemistry teacher Justin Tolman. Little did they know that this discussion would later be critical in settling a patent dispute between Farnsworth and his competitor at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), Vladimir Zworykin.

Farnsworth took physics courses by correspondence from the University of Utah and later enrolled at Brigham Young University. He was largely self-taught but so impressed two of his chemistry professors at BYU with his ideas about television that they gave him the run of the chemistry and glass labs to start work on his theories.

In 1924, Farnsworth's father died and he was left with the responsibility of supporting the family. After a short time in the navy, he moved to Salt Lake City to work as a canvasser for the Community Chest. There Farnsworth made friends with George Everson, the businessman who was organizing the fund-raising effort, and his associate Leslie Gorrell. Farnsworth told Everson and Gorrell about his ideas for a television, and they invested $6,000 in his venture. With additional backing from a group of bankers in San Francisco, Farnsworth was given a research lab and a year to prove his concepts.

Building the First Television System

Farnsworth was married to his college sweetheart Elma Pem Gardner on May 27, 1926, and the next day they left for California, where Farnsworth would set up his lab in San Francisco. With assistance from his wife, Elma, better known as Pem, and her brother Cliff, Farnsworth designed and built all the components - from the vacuum transmitter tubes to the image scanner and the receiver - that made up his first television system. The key invention was his Image Dissector camera, which scanned relatively slowly in one direction and relatively quickly in the opposite direction, making possible much greater scanning speeds than had been achieved earlier. All television receivers use this basic system of scanning.

On September 7, 1927, three weeks before the deadline, Farnsworth gathered his friends and engineering colleagues in a room adjoining the lab and amazed them with the first two-dimensional image ever transmitted by television - the image of his wife and assistant, Pem. His backers continued their support for a year and in September 1928, the first television system was unveiled to the world. In 1929, some of the bankers who invested in the research formed a company called Television Laboratories Inc., of which Farnsworth was named vice president and director of research.

The Challenge of the Marketplace

At the same time, RCA began aggressively competing with Farnsworth for control of the emerging television market and challenged the patent on his invention. With the testimony of Farnsworth's high school teacher, Justin Tollman, it was determined that Farnsworth had indeed documented his ideas one year before RCA's Vladimir Zworykin. This was but the first of many challenges from RCA, but in the end the corporate giant was forced to work out a cross-licensing arrangement with Farnsworth.

The victor in dozens of legal challenges by RCA, Farnsworth eventually licensed his television patents to the growing industry and let others refine and develop his basic inventions. His patents were first licensed in Germany and Great Britain, and only later did the Federal Communications Commission allocate broadcast channels in the United States. During his early years in San Francisco, Farnsworth did other important work as well. He made the first cold cathode-ray tube, the first simple electron microscope, and a means for using radio waves to sense direction - an innovation now known as radar. He received more than 300 patents worldwide during his career.

Farnsworth eventually set up his own company, which boomed during World War II with government contracts to develop electronic surveillance and other equipment. The Farnsworth Radio and Television Corp. took a downturn after the war and was sold to the International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) in 1949. Farnsworth remained with the company for some time as a research consultant. Late in his life he turned his attention to the field of atomic energy. Farnsworth died of emphysema on March 11, 1971, in Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

For his pioneering work, Farnsworth received the First Gold Medal awarded by the National Television Broadcasters Association in 1944. During his lifetime he also was presented with honorary doctorates in science from Indiana Technical College (1951) and Brigham Young University (1968). Posthumously, the inventor was remembered with a twenty-cent stamp with his likeness, issued in 1983, and his induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1984. The Philo T. Farnsworth Memorial Museum was dedicated in his honor in Rigby, Idaho, in 1988.

Further Reading

Dedication of the Statue of Philo T. Farnsworth, Proceedings in the U.S. Capital Rotunda, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990.

The Story of Television: The Life of Philo T. Farnsworth by George Everson. Norton, 1949.

Distant Vision: Romance and Discovery on an Invisible Frontier by Elma Farnsworth. Pemberly-Kent, 1990.

BYU Today, "Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television" by Dennis May (May 1989), pp. 33-36.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Philo Taylor Farnsworth

(born Aug. 19, 1906, Beaver, Utah, U.S. — died March 11, 1971, Salt Lake City, Utah) U.S. engineer and pioneer inventor in the development of television. In 1927 he successfully transmitted the first image using electronic means. By 1930 he was perfecting an electronic camera tube, the Image Dissector, which he demonstrated to rival inventor Vladimir Zworykin of Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Through the 1930s Farnsworth engaged in lawsuits against RCA, both sides claiming the invention of electronic television. In 1939 RCA agreed to pay him royalties as part of a patent-licensing agreement; that same year RCA introduced the first successful television system. Farnsworth went on to patent many other inventions, but he never achieved financial success or primary credit for inventing television.

For more information on Philo Taylor Farnsworth, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Farnsworth, Philo Taylor,
1906–71, American inventor, b. Beaver, Utah, grad. Brigham Young Univ., 1925. He demonstrated (1927) a working model of a television system. His “dissector tube” (called the orthicon), like V. K. Zworykin's iconoscope, is a means of dividing an image into particles whose light values, when transmitted, are capable of being restored to form a replica of the original image. In 1938 he became research director of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation.
 
Wikipedia: Philo Farnsworth

Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor. He is best known for inventing the first completely electronic television. In particular, he was the first to make a working electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), and the first to demonstrate an all-electronic television system to the public.

In his later life, Farnsworth also invented a small nuclear fusion device known as a fusor.

History

Many inventors had written about, worked on or built various electro-mechanical television systems prior to Farnsworth's seminal contribution, among them Alexander Bain, Paul Nipkow, Aleksandr Stoletov, Karl Ferdinand Braun, Boris Rosing, Herbert E. Ives, and John Logie Baird. Several inventors also wrote about, 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 on September 1 1928, televising a motion picture film; and to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on August 25 1934, televising live images.

In 1930, after a visit to Farnsworth's laboratory, Vladimir Zworykin copied this apparatus for RCA. The U.S. Patent Office rendered a decision in 1935 that a machine built to Zworykin's electronic television patent design of 1923 would produce largely meaningless shades of darkness and light, and was "an entirely different design" from the one described by RCA witnesses. Priority of invention was awarded to Farnsworth, based on his 1927 patent application, issued in 1930. Key aspects of Farnsworth's 1930 camera and receiver designs remain in use today.

Early life

Farnsworth was born into a Mormon family[1] in Beaver, Utah on August 19, 1906. His parents were Lewis Edwin and Serena Bastian Farnsworth.[2] 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. It had electric lighting, and power hoists to lift hay into the barn. Farnsworth converted a washing machine from hand to electric power by winding an armature to construct an electric motor.[3] 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.

Farnsworth excelled in chemistry and physics at Rigby High School, and produced sketches and prototypes of electron tubes. One of the drawings he did for his chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, proved to be the pattern for his later experiments in electronics and was instrumental in winning a patent interference case between Farnsworth and Radio Corporation of America (RCA).[4]

Philo took violin lessons from Reuben Wilkins in Ucon, Idaho. He enrolled at 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).

Career

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. Within months, he was ready to demonstrate his models and blueprints to a patent attorney who was a national authority on electrophysics. They agreed Farnsworth should apply for patents, which became critical to later disputes with RCA. To that point the development of television relied on mechanical whirling disks to scan the image. Farnsworth's innovation was to recognize that a satisfactory image, using whirling disks, would require a speed that was a mechanical impossibility, and that his own all-electronic system could produce an image for broadcast much more effectively.[5].

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. His backers had demanded to know when they would see dollars from the invention.[6] 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 (ostensibly representing Westinghouse as a customer, but actually gathering information for RCA as a competitor).[6] 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"[citation needed]. Baird himself had supported an earlier merger with Farnsworth's competitors in the U.K., the Marconi Company; the merger did not succeed. Marconi had a patent-sharing agreement with RCA. Baird company directors decided later to merge with Farnsworth. Baird's company paid Farnsworth $50,000 to supply electronic television equipment, and provide access to Farnsworth television patents. Baird and Farnsworth competed with EMI for forming the standard U.K. television system. EMI however merged with Marconi in 1934, gaining access to the RCA Iconoscope 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. The Image Dissector camera scanned well, but had poor light sensitivity compared to the Marconi-EMI Iconoscopes, which were called Emitrons. Farnsworth's old adversary, Vladimir Zworykin, also made an appearance at the BBC television trials.

After sailing to Europe in 1934, Farnsworth also secured an agreement with the Goerz-Bosch-Fernseh interests in Germany.[7]

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 reportedly persuaded to sever its relationship with Farnsworth in 1934. However, the October 3, 1936 edition of Collier's Magazine reported that Philco was Farnsworth's only major licensee in the United States, raising doubts about whether Philco severed its relationship.

Farnsworth returned to his lab. By 1936, Farnsworth's company was transmitting regular entertainment programs experimentally. In addition, Farnsworth, working with University of Pennsylvania biologists, developed a process for passing radio waves through milk to sterilize it. He had also invented a fog-penetrating beam for ships and airplanes.[8]

In 1938, he established the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with E.A. Nicholas as president, and himself as director of research. 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.

Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation was purchased by International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) in 1951. During his time at ITT, Farnsworth worked in a basement lab known as “the cave” on Pontiac Street in Fort Wayne. From here he introduced a number of breakthrough concepts, including: a defense early warning signal, submarine detection devices, radar calibration equipment, and an infrared telescope. “Philo was a very deep person – tough to engage in conversation because he was always thinking about what he could do next,” says Art Resler, an ITT photographer who documented Farnsworth’s work in pictures.[9] One of Farnsworth's most significant contributions at ITT was the PPI Projector, which allowed safe control of air traffic from the ground. This system developed in the 1950s was the forerunner of today’s sophisticated air traffic control systems.

In addition to his electronics research, ITT management agreed to nominally fund Farnsworth's controlled fusion ideas. He and staff members invented and refined a series of fusion reaction tubes called "fusors." For scientific reasons unknown to Farnsworth and his staff, the necessary reactions lasted no longer than thirty seconds. In December 1965, ITT came under pressure from its board of directors to terminate the expensive fusion research and sell the Farnsworth subsidiary. It was only from the urging of President Harold Geneen that the 1966 budget was accepted, permitting ITT's fusion research one additional year. However, the stress associated with this managerial ultimatum threw Farnsworth into relapse. One year later he was terminated and eventually allowed medical retirement.[10]

In the spring of 1967, Farnsworth and his family moved back to Utah to continue his fusion research at Brigham Young University, which presented him with an honorary doctorate. The university also offered him office space and an underground concrete bunker location for the project. Realizing the fusion lab was to be dismantled at ITT, Farnsworth invited staff members to accompany him to Salt Lake City as team members in his planned Philo T. Farnsworth Associates (PTFA) organization. By late 1968 the associates began holding regular business meetings and PTFA was underway. However, although a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was promptly secured and more possibilities were within reach, the financing needed to pay the $24,000 in monthly expenses for equipment rental and salaries was stalled.[10]

By Christmas 1970, PTFA had failed to secure the necessary financing, the Farnsworth's had sold all their own ITT stock and cashed out Philo's life insurance policy to maintain organization stability. The underwriter had failed to provide the financial backing that was to have supported the organization during its critical first year. The banks called-in all outstanding loans. Repossession notices were placed on anything not previously sold and the Internal Revenue Service put a lock on the laboratory door until delinquent taxes were paid. During January 1970, Philo T. Farnsworth Associates disbanded. Farnsworth became seriously ill with pneumonia and died on 11 March 1971.[10]

Farnsworth's wife Elma fought for decades after his death to assure his place in history. Farnsworth always gave her equal credit for creating television, saying "my wife and I started this TV." She died on April 27, 2006, at the age of 98.[11]

Although best known for his development of television, Farnsworth was involved in research in many other areas. He invented the first electron microscope and the first infant incubator. He was involved in the development of radar, peacetime uses of atomic energy, and the nuclear fusion process. At his death, Farnsworth held 300 U.S. and foreign patents, and Scientific American Magazine called him one of the ten greatest mathematicians of his time.[10]

Inventions

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 (CRT) came from the back-and-forth motion used to plow a field. During a patent lawsuit against RCA in 1935, his high school chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, reproduced a drawing that 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.

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.

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.[12]

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.

Memorials

The plaque on Green Street.
Enlarge
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.[13]
  • 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.
  • 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 has now been produced as an experimental play for the La Jolla Playhouse, California, which opened to a standing ovation on February 20, 2007. The play is now scheduled to open on Broadway at the Music Box Theater in November, 2007 starring Hank Azaria. The first preview opened to a standing ovation on October 15, 2007.[citation needed] 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.

Patents

  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Television system (filed 7 January 1927, issued 26 August 1930)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Television receiving system (filed 7 January 1927, issued 26 August 1930)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Electric oscillator system (filed 7 January 1927, issued May 13 1930)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Light valve (filed 7 January 1927, issued 26 May 1931)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Television method (filed 9 January 1928, issued 8 August 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Photoelectric apparatus (filed 9 January 1928, issued 14 August 1934)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Television scanning and synchronization system (filed May 5 1930, issued June 24 1941)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Dissector target (filed 7 July 1930, issued 26 December 1933)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Projecting oscillight (filed 14 July 1931, issued 13 December 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Scanning oscillator (filed 3 April 1933, issued 3 November 1936)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Image dissector (filed 26 April 1933, issued 20 July 1937)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Oscillation generator (filed 5 July 1934, issued 23 February 1937)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Projection means (filed 6 November 1934, issued 10 January 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Image projector (filed 6 February 1935, issued 4 March 1941)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Means of electron multipaction (filed 12 March 1935, issued 10 January 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Oscillator (filed 12 March 1935, issued 26 September 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Amplifier (filed 12 March 1935, issued 12 November 1940)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Means for producing incandescent images (filed 7 May 1935, issued 25 April 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Charge storage dissector (filed 6 July 1935, issued 20 December 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Cathode ray amplifier (filed 6 July 1935, issued 14 January 1941)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Charge storage amplifier (filed 6 July 1935, issued 4 March 1941)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Cathode ray amplifying tube (filed 10 August 1935, issued 29 July 1941)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Charge storage tube (filed 14 September 1935, issued 30 November 1937)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Multipactor oscillator (filed 27 January 1936, issued 22 November 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Scanning current generator (filed 10 February 1936, issued 10 September 1940)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Incandescent light source (filed 9 March 1936, issued 3 August 1937)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Absorption oscillator (filed 9 March 1936, issued 23 May 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Secondary emission electrode (filed 24 March 1936, issued 13 December 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Means and method for producing electronic multiplication (filed 16 May 1936, issued 11 June 1940)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Means and method of controlling electron multipliers (filed 16 May 1936, issued 20 December 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Electron multiplier (filed 18 May 1936, issued 28 October 1941)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Multistage multipactor (filed 1 June 1936, issued 27 December 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Image dissector (filed 18 August 1936, issued 1 October 1940)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Means and method of operating electron multipliers (filed 18 August 1936, issued 30 August 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Repeater (filed 31 October 1936, issued 10 January 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Cathode ray tube (filed 2 November 1936, issued 13 December 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : High power projection oscillograph (filed 2 November 1936, issued 22 February 1938)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Cold cathode electron discharge tube (filed 4 November 1936, issued 26 December 1939)
  • Philo T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Electron multiplier (filed 9 November 1936, issued 14 November 1939)
  • P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : X-ray projection device
  • P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Cold cathode electron discharge tube
  • P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Electric discharge device for producing interaction between nuclei
  • P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Method and apparatus for producing nuclear fusion reactions
  • P.T. Farnsworth, U.S. Patent  : Electrostatic containment in fusion reactors

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.

References

  1. ^ Drew Williams near (2003). Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Mormonism. Alpha Books. ISBN 0028644913. 
  2. ^ Farnsworth Archives. Retrieved on 2007-09-11.
  3. ^ Collier's Magazine, October 3, 1936
  4. ^ Godfrey, Donald. FARNSWORTH, PHILO: U.S. Inventor. The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved on 2007-07-05.
  5. ^ Collier's Magazine October 3, 1936
  6. ^ a b Schwartz, Evan I., 2002. The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit & the Birth of Television. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-621069-0
  7. ^ Collier's Magazine October 3, 1936
  8. ^ Collier's Magazine October 3, 1936
  9. ^ ITT, Advancing Human Progress. ITT. Retrieved on 2007-07-05.
  10. ^ a b c d Biography of Philo Taylor Farnsworth. University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collections. Retrieved on 2007-07-05.
  11. ^ 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 2007-01-05. (English) 
  12. ^ Schatzkin, Paul. The Farnsworth Chronicles. Farnovision.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-08.
  13. ^ (Fall 2006) "TV Pioneer Recognized as Eagle Scout". Eagletter Vol:32 (No:2): pp: 10. 

Further reading

  • Farnsworth, Elma Gardner, 1989. Distant Vision: Romance & Discovery on an Invisible Frontier. Salt Lake City UT: Pemberley Kent Publishers. ISBN 0962327603
  • Fisher, David E. and Marshall J., 1996. Tube, the Invention of Television. Washington D.C.: Counterpoint. ISBN 1-887178-17-1
  • Godfrey, D. G., 2001. Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television. University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-675-5
  • Schatzkin, Paul, 2002. The Boy Who Invented Television. Silver Spring MD: Teamcom Books. ISBN 1-928791-30-1
  • Schwartz, Evan I., 2002. The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit & the Birth of Television. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-060935-59-6
  • Stashower, Daniel, 2002. The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-0759-0

External links


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