Philo Farnsworth on I've Got A Secret

Philo T. Farnsworth: The Boy Who Invented Television.
http://farnovision.com
Get the whole amazing story: http://farnovision.com/book.html

Thumbnail sketch: Philo T. Farnsworth was living on a farm in Rigby Idaho in 1921 when he figured out how to bounce electrons back and forth in a vacuum tube. In 1927 he demonstrated the 'proof of concept' in a lab in San Fransisco (see related video, "The First Picture.") In 1930 he obtained the critical patents for the art that made television possible, He fought with RCA over those patents through the rest of the 1930s, finally becoming the first outside inventor to win patent litigation against RCA in 1939.


By the time television became a household appliance, the name of its inventor was sufficiently lost to the public that he could appear on a TeeVee game show in 1957 and not a soul would recognize him.

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[driver49]

No, he is not working on an H bomb. He was working on CONTROLLED nuclear fusion - yes, the same nuclear reaction as an H-BOMB, but NOT an explosive release. If a fusor malfunctions, you lose the vacuum and the reaction stops. Read a book. Get a clue.

[Jacob Fredrickson]

Right at the end, He's says he's working on making TV's with an excess of 2000 lines. That's HDTV.

Also he says he's trying to make just a screen with the picture pasted on, that's a flatscreen.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, he just casually drops the seed for digital cameras.

This man was amazing!

—Jacob

[rikaitch]

Makes you wonder where he'd be if the Crystal Palace hadn't burnt down in 1936...

[PaigeS2008]

Eighty dollars in 1957 is equivalent to about $650 today. I wonder what he did with the smokes, though: Farnsworth was a Mormon.

[HyperColours]

John Logie Baird

[ZeldaMiner77]

thats my grandpa's 16 cousin removed twice

[bailinnumberguy]

He's one of the great inventors of all time. His reward? $80 cash and a carton of cigarettes.

[mollymasonrichards14]

I am so proud to be related to that guy! That was so amazing. Can you imagine ever doing that?

[Jonathan Calabretta]

There's plenty of meaningful evidence...

all of it stating that Zworykin was and always shall be a filthy filthy thief.

[freedude421]

My grandpa LOLing, he thought it was SOOOOOOOOO funny.

[wb6hgw]

Mr. Farnsworth's vision of what is possible would seem to be the product of thinking outside-the-box as well as applying knowledge gained by studying all available material relating to his field of interest. If one can avoid distraction and focus on specific ideas and concepts it stands to reason that young people today could achieve similar results. Don't be afraid to dream and wonder. Thank you Mr. Farnsworth for providing me with a vocation for life. HDTV at 1080i today, your 2K concept soon.