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For those
inclined to think of our fading century as an era of
the common man, let it be noted that the inventor of
one of the century's greatest machines was a man
called Phil. Even more, he was actually born in a
log cabin, rode to high school on horseback and,
without benefit of a university degree (indeed, at
age 14), conceived the idea of electronic television
— the moment of inspiration coming, according to
legend, while he was tilling a potato field back and
forth with a horse-drawn harrow and realized that an
electron beam could scan images the same way, line
by line, just as you read a book. To cap it off, he
spent much of his adult life in a struggle with one
of America's largest and most powerful corporations.
Our kind of guy.
I refer, of
course, to Philo Taylor Farnsworth. The "of course"
is meant as a joke, since almost no one outside the
industry has ever heard of him. But we ought not to
let the century expire without attempting to make
amends.
Farnsworth was born in 1906 near
Beaver City, Utah, a community settled by his
grandfather (in 1856) under instructions from
Brigham Young himself. When Farnsworth was 12, his
family moved to a ranch in Rigby, Idaho, which was
four miles from the nearest high school, thus
necessitating his daily horseback rides. Because he
was intrigued with the electron and electricity, he
persuaded his chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, to
give him special instruction and to allow him to
audit a senior course. You could read about great
scientists from now until the 22nd century and not
find another instance where one of them celebrates a
high school teacher. But Farnsworth did, crediting
Tolman with providing inspiration and essential
knowledge.
Tolman
returned the compliment. Many years later,
testifying at a patent interference case, Tolman
said Farnsworth's explanation of the theory of
relativity was the clearest and most concise he had
ever heard. Remember, this would have been in 1921,
and Farnsworth would have been all of 15. And Tolman
was not the only one who recognized the young
student's genius. With only two years of high school
behind him, and buttressed by an intense
auto-didacticism, Farnsworth gained admission to
Brigham Young University.
The death of
his father forced him to leave at the end of his
second year, but, as it turned out, at no great
intellectual cost. There were, at the time, no more
than a handful of men on the planet who could have
understood Farnsworth's ideas for building an
electronic-television system, and it's unlikely that
any
of them were at Brigham Young. One such man was
Vladimir Zworykin, who had emigrated to the U.S.
from Russia with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.
He went to work for Westinghouse with a dream of
building
an all-electronic television system. But he
wasn't able to do so. Farnsworth was. But not at
once.
He didn't do
it until he was 21. By then, he had found investors,
a few assistants and a loving wife ("Pem") who
assisted him in his research. He moved to San
Francisco and set up a laboratory in an empty loft.
On Sept. 7, 1927, Farnsworth painted a square of
glass black and scratched a straight line on the
center. In another room, Pem's brother, Cliff
Gardner, dropped the slide between the Image
Dissector
(the camera tube that Farnsworth had
invented earlier that year) and a hot, bright,
carbon arc lamp. Farnsworth, Pem and one of the
investors, George Everson, watched the receiver.
They saw the
straight-line image and then, as Cliff
turned the slide 90[degrees], they saw it
move--which is to say
they saw the first
all-electronic television picture ever transmitted.
History
should take note of Farnsworth's reaction. After
all, we learn in school that Samuel Morse's
first
telegraph message was "What hath God wrought?"
Edison spoke into his phonograph, "Mary had a little
lamb." And Don Ameche — I mean, Alexander Graham
Bell — shouted for assistance: "Mr. Watson, come
here, I need you!" What did Farnsworth exclaim?
"There you are," said Phil, "electronic television."
Later that evening, he wrote in his laboratory
journal: "The received line picture was evident this
time." Not very catchy for a climactic scene in a
movie. Perhaps we could use the telegram George
Everson sent to another investor: "The damned thing
works!"
At this point in the story, things
turn ugly. Physics, engineering and scientific
inspiration begin to recede in importance as lawyers
take center stage. As it happens, Zworykin had made
a patent application in 1923, and by 1933 had
developed a camera tube he called an Iconoscope. It
also happens that Zworykin was by then connected
with the Radio Corporation of America, whose chief,
David Sarnoff, had no intention of paying royalties
to Farnsworth for the right to manufacture
television sets. "RCA doesn't pay royalties," he is
alleged to have said, "we collect them."
And so there
ensued a legal battle over who invented television.
RCA's lawyers contended that Zworykin's 1923 patent
had priority over any of Farnsworth's patents,
including the one for his Image Dissector. RCA's
case was not strong, since it could produce no
evidence that in 1923 Zworykin had produced an
operable television transmitter. Moreover,
Farnsworth's old teacher, Tolman, not only testified
that Farnsworth had conceived the idea when he was a
high school student, but also produced the original
sketch of an electronic tube that Farnsworth had
drawn for him at that time. The sketch was almost an
exact replica of an Image Dissector.
In 1934 the U.S. Patent Office
rendered its decision, awarding priority of
invention to Farnsworth. RCA appealed and lost, but
litigation about various matters continued for many
years until Sarnoff finally agreed to pay Farnsworth
royalties.
But he
didn't have to for very long. During World War II,
the government suspended sales of TV sets, and by
the war's end, Farnsworth's key patents were close
to expiring. When they did, RCA was quick to take
charge of the production and sales of TV sets, and
in a vigorous public-relations campaign, promoted
both Zworykin and Sarnoff as the fathers of
television. Farnsworth withdrew to a house in Maine,
suffering from depression, which was made worse by
excessive drinking. He had a nervous breakdown,
spent time in hospitals and had to submit to shock
therapy. And in 1947, as if he were being punished
for having invented television, his house in Maine
burned to the ground.
One wishes
it could be said that this was the final indignity
Farnsworth had to suffer, but it was not. Ten years
later, he appeared as a mystery guest on the
television program What's My Line? Farnsworth was
referred to as Dr. X and the panel had the task of
discovering what he had done to merit his appearance
on the show. One of the panelists asked Dr. X if he
had invented some kind of a machine that might be
painful when used. Farnsworth answered, "Yes.
Sometimes it's most painful."
He was just
being characteristically polite. His attitude toward
the uses that had been made of his invention was
more ferocious. His son Kent was once asked what
that attitude was. He said, "I suppose you could say
that he felt he had created kind of a monster, a way
for people to waste a lot of their lives."
He added, "Throughout my childhood
his reaction to television was '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."
So we may end Farnsworth's story by
saying that he was not only the inventor of
television but also one
of its earliest and most
perceptive critics.
Neil
Postman is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Media
Ecology at New York University
March
29, 1999 Time magazine, Link:
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/farnsworth.html |
