| Recently I was reading a list of inventors of | | | | Relativity probably better than his high |
| important inventions that affect our lives | | | | school teacher who had tutored him in an |
| every day. I glanced down the list quickly | | | | audited senior chemistry class. This teacher |
| looking for the inventor I knew most about | | | | would testify years later in a patent |
| because he once lived in this area. To my | | | | interference case. |
| astonishment he was not on the list, in fact, | | | | |
| the item he invented was not on the list. | | | | Phil said that the idea of TV came to him on |
| This really surprised me because most | | | | an Idaho potato field. As he tilled the |
| everyone now days has at least one or two of | | | | plants behind a horse drawn harrow going back |
| these in their homes. | | | | and forth and back and forth. You can just |
| | | | see his inventive mind working over time |
| So let me introduce you to the inventor of | | | | while he was doing this monotonous task. |
| TV, Philo T. Farnsworth. When Phil T. | | | | Realizing at length that an electron beam |
| Farnsworth first talked about transmitting | | | | could scan images the same way. Row by row |
| pictures through the air to a little box, the | | | | or line by line as if reading the book. |
| people in the small town of Rigby, Idaho | | | | |
| probably thought he had lost his marbles. | | | | With only two years of high school complete |
| Well, time has proved that he didn't loose | | | | he applied to Brigham Young University and |
| his marbles, but he did spread this idea all | | | | was accepted despite his youth and the lack |
| over the place. | | | | of a high school diploma. Here he researched |
| | | | television picture transmission. In 1926 at |
| With the introduction of TV into our world we | | | | the ripe old age of 20 he co founded Crooker |
| were all just happy to have one of these | | | | Research Laboratories, later to be renamed |
| magical boxers in our living room. No one | | | | Farnsworth Television Inc in 1929. |
| thought they would ever be lucky enough to | | | | |
| have two or event better yet, be able to take | | | | In 1927 he transmitted a television image of |
| one where ever they went. | | | | 60 horizontal lines. He filed for his first |
| | | | television patent # 1,773,980 in the year |
| Phil T. Farnsworth got the key to the TV tube | | | | 1927. |
| when he was 14 and a farm boy. By the age of | | | | |
| 21 he had a working device. His parents | | | | He continued to invent all of his life. One |
| wanted him to be a violinist, but he was more | | | | hundred sixty five different items he |
| interested in experimenting with electricity. | | | | invented included amplifiers, vacuum tubes, |
| His mother's first electric washing machine | | | | electrical scanners, electron multipliers and |
| was built by him. | | | | photoelectric materials and equipment for |
| | | | converting an optical image into an |
| He was born in a log cabin in 1906 in a small | | | | electrical signal. He came a long was from |
| town in Utah. He rode his horse to school. | | | | that first electric washing machine for his |
| When he was 15 he was living in the small | | | | mom to the magic box, called television, for |
| town of Rigby, Idaho. At the age of 15 | | | | the world. |
| Farnsworth understood the Theory of | | | | |