48 Facts About Philo Farnsworth

Philo Taylor Farnsworth was an American inventor and television pioneer.

Philo Farnsworth made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television.

Philo Farnsworth is best known for his 1927 invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device, the image dissector, as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system.

In later life, Philo Farnsworth invented a small nuclear fusion device, the Philo Farnsworth Fusor, employing inertial electrostatic confinement.

Philo Farnsworth was born August 19,1906, the eldest of five children of Lewis Edwin Philo Farnsworth and Serena Amanda Bastian, a Latter-day Saint couple living in a small log cabin built by Lewis' father near Beaver, Utah.

Philo Farnsworth was excited to find that his new home was wired for electricity, with a Delco generator providing power for lighting and farm machinery.

Philo Farnsworth was a quick student in mechanical and electrical technology, repairing the troublesome generator.

Philo Farnsworth found a burned-out electric motor among some items discarded by the previous tenants and rewound the armature; he converted his mother's hand-powered washing machine into an electric-powered one.

Philo Farnsworth developed an early interest in electronics after his first telephone conversation with a distant relative, and he discovered a large cache of technology magazines in the attic of their new home.

Philo Farnsworth won $25 in a pulp-magazine contest for inventing a magnetized car lock.

Philo Farnsworth was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Philo Farnsworth excelled in chemistry and physics at Rigby High School.

Philo Farnsworth asked science teacher Justin Tolman for advice about an electronic television system that he was contemplating; he provided the teacher with sketches and diagrams covering several blackboards to show how it might be accomplished electronically, and Tolman encouraged him to develop his ideas.

In 1923, the family moved to Provo, Utah, and Philo Farnsworth attended Brigham Young High School that fall.

Philo Farnsworth's father died of pneumonia in January 1924 at age 58, and Farnsworth assumed responsibility for sustaining the family while finishing high school.

Philo Farnsworth returned to Provo and enrolled at Brigham Young University, but he was not allowed by the faculty to attend their advanced science classes based upon policy considerations.

Philo Farnsworth attended anyway and made use of the university's research labs, and he earned a Junior Radio-Trician certification from the National Radio Institute, and full certification in 1925.

Philo Farnsworth worked while his sister Agnes took charge of the family home and the second-floor boarding house, with the help of a cousin living with the family.

Philo Farnsworth developed a close friendship with Pem's brother Cliff Gardner, who shared his interest in electronics, and the two moved to Salt Lake City to start a radio repair business.

Philo Farnsworth remained in Salt Lake City and became acquainted with Leslie Gorrell and George Everson, a pair of San Francisco philanthropists who were then conducting a Salt Lake City Community Chest fund-raising campaign.

Philo Farnsworth married Pem on May 27,1926, and the two traveled to Berkeley, California, in a Pullman coach.

Everson and Gorrell agreed that Philo Farnsworth should apply for patents for his designs, a decision that proved crucial in later disputes with RCA.

Philo Farnsworth recognized the limitations of the mechanical systems, and that an all-electronic scanning system could produce a superior image for transmission to a receiving device.

Philo Farnsworth's backers had demanded to know when they would see dollars from the invention; so the first image shown was, appropriately, a dollar sign.

That year Philo Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images using his television system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife Pem.

Philo Farnsworth first demonstrated his system to the press on September 3,1928, and to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on August 25,1934.

But, Philo Farnsworth didn't have the mosaic [of discrete light elements], he didn't have storage.

RCA later filed an interference suit against Philo Farnsworth, claiming Zworykin's 1923 patent had priority over Philo Farnsworth's design, despite the fact it could present no evidence that Zworykin had actually produced a functioning transmitter tube before 1931.

Philo Farnsworth had lost two interference claims to Zworykin in 1928, but this time he prevailed and the US Patent Office rendered a decision in 1934 awarding priority of the invention of the image dissector to Philo Farnsworth.

Zworykin received a patent in 1928 for a color transmission version of his 1923 patent application; he divided his original application in 1931, receiving a patent in 1935, while a second one was eventually issued in 1938 by the Court of Appeals on a non-Philo Farnsworth-related interference case, and over the objection of the Patent Office.

In 1932, while in England to raise money for his legal battles with RCA, Philo Farnsworth met with John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor who had given the world's first public demonstration of a working television system in London in 1926, using an electro-mechanical imaging system, and who was seeking to develop electronic television receivers.

Philo Farnsworth set up shop at 127 East Mermaid Lane in Philadelphia, and in 1934 held the first public exhibition of his device at the Franklin Institute in that city.

Philo Farnsworth returned to his laboratory, and by 1936 his company was regularly transmitting entertainment programs on an experimental basis.

That same year, while working with University of Pennsylvania biologists, Philo Farnsworth developed a process to sterilize milk using radio waves.

Philo Farnsworth invented a fog-penetrating beam for ships and airplanes.

In 1938, Farnsworth established the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with E A Nicholas as president and himself as director of research.

The stress associated with this managerial ultimatum caused Philo Farnsworth to suffer a relapse.

Philo Farnsworth had begun abusing alcohol in his later years, and as a result became seriously ill with pneumonia, and died on March 11,1971, at his home in Holladay, Utah.

Philo Farnsworth worked out the principle of the image dissector in the summer of 1921, not long before his 15th birthday, and demonstrated the first working version on September 7,1927, having turned 21 the previous August.

Philo Farnsworth won the suit; RCA appealed the decision in 1936 and lost.

Philo Farnsworth received royalties from RCA, but he never became wealthy.

Philo Farnsworth developed the "image oscillite", a cathode ray tube that displayed the images captured by the image dissector.

Philo Farnsworth called his device an image dissector because it converted individual elements of the image into electricity one at a time.

Philo Farnsworth replaced the spinning disks with caesium, an element that emits electrons when exposed to light.

In 1984, Philo Farnsworth was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

The Philo Farnsworth fusor is an apparatus designed by Philo Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion.

At the time he died, Philo Farnsworth held 300 US and foreign patents.

Philo Farnsworth's inventions contributed to the development of radar, infra-red night vision devices, the electron microscope, the baby incubator, the gastroscope, and the astronomical telescope.