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Philo Farnsworth

Electrical Engineering

Philo Farnsworth was an American inventor who achieved the first fully electronic television image transmission in 1927, using his own image dissector camera tube, at the age of twenty one. RCA, backing rival engineer Vladimir Zworykin's competing patent claim, lost a patent interference suit against Farnsworth in 1934 and eventually agreed in 1939 to pay him royalties, a rare reversal for the company.

Facts
Birth Year
1906 1
Death Year
1971 1
Nationality
American 1
FAQs

How did Philo Farnsworth first come up with the idea of electronic television?

He got the idea of scanning a picture in horizontal lines from rows of cut hay and sketched it for his chemistry class.

Farnsworth drew his Image Dissector on a chemistry class blackboard when he was 15 years old. The idea of building a television picture by scanning it in horizontal lines came to him as a boy in Utah, while he looked at the pattern left by rows of hay cut in alternating directions. He first proposed his television system to his chemistry class in 1922. Years later his chemistry teacher redrew that sketch, which helped Farnsworth win a long courtroom battle against the Radio Corporation of America.
Connections

Associated With

Invented the first fully electronic television system.

In Field

Source Philo Farnsworth (Wikipedia)

Invented

Television, Inventions
Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
In the Other Atlases

Same As

Also in Energy Atlas: the same subject.

Nationality

Also in Geography Atlas: the nationality of this subject.

Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.View the Source
Philo Farnsworth (Wikipedia)
  • In Group: Telecommunications and Radio Engineers, lead paragraph: telecom/radio/television invention or advance stated in own article
  • In Field: Electrical Engineering, Introduction
    Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906, March 11, 1971) was an American inventor who was granted the first patent for the television by the United States government.
View the Source
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