Pioneers of Television — Philo Taylor Farnsworth

Abstract

This is the third in the series of “Pioneers of Television,” written for the SMPTE Journal. Philo T. Farnsworth was one of the most prolific inventors in television history, with over 75 important inventions in his name. Born in 1906 in Utah, he conceived an all-electric system of television while only 15 years of age. He typified the school of inventors that not only conceived the ideas but built and implemented them. By the time he was 21 he had secured financing and was operating a laboratory in San Francisco, from which came a host of important inventions. Farnsworth was the first inventor in the world to build and operate an all-electric television system, in July 1929. This included an electric camera tube, the image dissector; a vacuum-tube scanning, blanking, and sync generator; and a magnetically focused cathode ray tube. His image dissector camera tube was the first to pick up “live” images in broad daylight. He was the inventor of the method for generating anode high voltage from the scanning currents. His research in camera tubes led him to patent the first camera tube to use a low-velocity electron beam that scanned a target at cathode potential. This led to the Orthicon and Image Orthicon camera tubes that made postwar television possible. Farnsworth's imagination knew no limits, and without his inventions no modern-day television system could operate. Yet in spite of these considerable achievements, he is relatively unknown and has been overshadowed by other pioneers in television history.