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| Whimsical illustration of Philo Farnsworth at work in his laboratory |
“The damned thing works!”
That was the message Philo Farnsworth sent his backer after getting his television working in September 1927, according to an account published by the Indiana Historical Bureau. The picture was a straight line. After all the trouble it had taken to get it, a straight line was plenty.
Philo
was 21. He’d been building equipment in a San Francisco laboratory, trying to
make pictures travel electronically. His wife, Pem, helped with the work. Her
brother, Cliff Gardner, learned glassblowing because the tubes Philo needed
weren’t sitting on a hardware store shelf.
Getting
somebody to pay for this took some explaining.
When
fundraiser George Everson pitched the project to banker James Fagan, the banker
answered, “Well, that is a damn fool idea, but somebody ought to put money into
it.”
A
group connected with Crocker First National Bank put up $25,000. Philo had
money to work with—and people who’d eventually want it back.
He’d
been thinking about television since he was a kid. Born in Utah in 1906, he’d
read science magazines and fooled with electrical equipment. His wife said
looking at rows in a field helped him picture how television could work.
Scan an image line by line. Turn it into an electrical signal. Put it back together on another screen, fast enough that the eye sees a whole picture.
In
1922, he explained the idea to his high school science teacher, Justin Tolman.
Tolman listened and kept evidence of what the boy had worked out. That would
come in handy.
Other
inventors were already making television pictures with spinning disks. Philo
wanted an electronic system. His “image dissector” turned light into an
electronic image, then scanned it into a signal that a receiver could turn back
into a picture.
Easy
enough to explain. Not so easy to build.
Philo Farnsworth
(Pencil drawing of public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)
In 1928, he had something to show reporters. The San Francisco Chronicle called him a “Young Genius,” describing the picture as “a queer looking little image in bluish light.”
It
wasn’t ready for movies yet.
When
investors pressed him for a payoff, Philo transmitted a dollar sign. A smart
answer, even though it didn’t solve the money problem.
RCA
had deeper pockets and lawyers to match. Its television engineer, Vladimir
Zworykin, visited Philo’s laboratory in 1930. A long fight over patent rights
followed.
Remember
Tolman? His evidence helped establish that Farnsworth had worked out key ideas
back in high school. Philo won an important patent office ruling in 1935. RCA
finally agreed to license his technology in 1939.
Then
everything went to hell.
World
War II interrupted television’s growth. Philo’s company struggled, and ITT took
it over in 1949, just as television was becoming big business.
He
kept inventing and later worked on nuclear fusion.
Physics
lo Farnsworth died in 1971, aged 64. But he lived to watch the moon landing.
His wife recalled him saying, “This has made it all worthwhile.”
The
damn fool idea had brought the moon into the living room. Not bad for a farm
kid from Utah.
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