Who Invented the Television?

Comments on article "Who Invented the Television?"
Name Views and CommentsDate
mitva i just love ttttttttttttvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
thanks to invent television...
:)		 12/18/2011
ALEXIS i IOVE THE TVVVVV IT A COOL INVENTION 9/21/2011
gege i just dont understand still come on did he make it or just put images inside of it(talking about philo farnsworth) 5/8/2011
Bob very goos 2/27/2011
National Anthem Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!		 2/27/2011
.Joe S wow 2/27/2011
iliana hiii 2/24/2011
courtney wow lol dude likke i didnt even read any of this but maybe i will lata 2/24/2011
erica juaneta that apesta buga buga guacala 2/8/2011
tonta yourrrrrrrrrr a pollo super rico yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh 2/8/2011
pollas idont think pollo is good for humanoides 2/8/2011
bob this doesn't tell me anything 1/31/2011
Jack You need to add a picture of the Selenium Camera! 1/28/2011
DONNALEE E WHATS POPING 1/24/2011
alicia come on give us more people 1/20/2011
hothead 98 who in invented the telelvision?:( 9/14/2010
chandan Information is good but not clear. Need more information 6/25/2010
morgan it is the coolest thing since sliced bread hahaha just kidding it is pretty cool 5/11/2010
morgan leland i think that tv is the coolest thing since sliced bread hahahha just kidding but it is pretty cool 5/11/2010
kala hi i love doing reasearch 4/27/2010
elizebeth paige where is pholio farnsworth 4/22/2010
guy i m crazy about tv 1/20/2010
guy seriously 1/20/2010
april I thought philo T. Farnsworth invented the T.V 10/20/2009
55181985 I Think it's good we Television now because we need to know when something bad is going to happen and now we know because we have the television and the news be on channel 12 telling us when something is going to happen 9/10/2009
theodore i think article invented the television he is rich like gottlieb daimler and bill gates 7/21/2009
theodore he is rich like bill gates 7/21/2009
olivia It was really great to know lots of that in formatin. 7/5/2009
Naomi it is really interesting! It gives me alot of cool information. 4/5/2009
HANSIZ Where was this link made? 3/9/2009
ali good news! 1/29/2009
Hannah Humphrey Farnsworth invented the tube tv in 1927 11/20/2008
Melissa Farnsworth invented the tube tv. 11/20/2008
who wants to no eat it 6/27/2008
zoe 101 AWSOME 6/19/2008
ZOE i AM USING THIS INFO 4 MY ASSIGNMENT, WAYS TO COMMUNICATE
YEH I DON'T KNOW HOW TV IS A WAY TO COMMUNICATE BUT ANY WAY		 6/19/2008
Zoe NA aka no
me don't think so!
how bout u?		 6/19/2008
Chris Long RE: "WHO INVENTED TELEVISION".

As a working historian and media chronicler for the last 40 years, with an educational background in electrical engineering, I would have to say that "the inventor of television" all depends on definitions.

Let's look at the definitions of two words by one of the most authoritative arbiters of the English language, the "Concise Oxford Dictionary":

First, the word "invent":

"v.t. create by thought, originate... concoct..."

However, most people would consider that invention involves more than just the conception of a plan, more than mere speculation on paper. For the thing to be truly INVENTED by a person, it has to be DEMONSTRATED by that person.

For example, Charles Cros narrowly beat Thomas Edison to the CONCEPTION of a phonograph; but Edison, in 1877, was the first to DEMONSTRATE it. Therefore Edison is generally considered to be the phonograph's inventor.

Radio? Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of "Hertzian" or "radio" waves, but Marconi applied it to a practical signalling system, so Marconi is generally considered to be the inventor of radio.

So let's look at the Oxford Dictionary's definition of the word "television":

"n. System for reproducing actual or recorded scene at a distance on a screen etc. by radio transmission, usu. with appropriate sounds; vision of distant objects obtained thus: televised programs etc..."

In terms of mere conception, there are many claimants to the invention of television systems which were eventually combined with other components to achieve television. Nipkow (1883) invented the scanning disc eventually employed by the earliest television systems. Moore (1917) invented the low-voltage modulated neon lamp used with that disc to receive the earliest television pictures. The alkali metal photocell with its high speed of response, suitable for television, was developed from concepts published by Elster and Geitel (1889). C F Jenkins (1923) transmitted moving pictures scanned from film, but these were usually simple silhouettes and geometric shapes, not three dimensional subjects by reflected light, not direct, no greyscale and certainly not "live".

So who was first to assemble a television system and demonstrate it to be capable of transmitting real-time three-dimensional objects, in movement, with a full range of grey scale tones, by reflected light? We MUST give credit to John Logie Baird and his first demonstration of the transmission of a dummy's head - as well as his own head and William Taynton's, in the first week of October 1925. Or, if you prefer the date of Baird's first public display, 26 January 1926, where forty members of Britain's Royal Institution and two journalists attended. Photographs of Baird's 30-line television image were taken in 1926. Although fuzzy and jagged, the image is recognisably that of a human face - and if one had known Baird's business manager, Hutchinson, one would probably have recognised him from that image.

The fact that later, electronic (cathode ray tube) systems of television by Campbell-Swinton (in conception only), Zworykin, Farnsworth et al eventually outmoded these earlier TV systems with their mechanical scanners does not detract from Baird's claim to invention. Baird, in October 1925, came first. To apply the same standards, present radio techniques owe little to Marconi's spark-and-coherer methods of the 1890s; modern railways work on an entirely different principle to Stephenson's steam-powered "Rocket" locomotive. But the perception of invention must lie with the earliest techniques that were made to work, and with the pioneers who used those techniques.

Farnsworth, for whom so much has been claimed in recent years, was undisputedly the first to get a wholly ELECTRONIC television system to work. This transmitted, according to Abramson's "History Of Television" (1987), only a "blob of light" on 7 September 1927. According to Farnsworth's own notes, his first "real" pictures were not produced by his camera tube until the second week of May, 1928. However Farnsworth's "image dissector" camera tube could not store photoelectric charge for the duration of each picture scan: it was insensitive, and it was not the direct antecedent of the mainstream of electronic television, as Zworykin's "iconoscope" camera and "kinescope" high vacuum receiver CRT were. According to Abramson, Zworykin's camera tube, though receiving an initial patent as early as 1923, was not made to work with film scanning until the end of 1930; it did not produce "live" pictures from a single-sided target plate until 9 November 1931; and a new method for producing a 'mosaic' of photosensitive elements on the camera signal plate provided really practical advances of Zworykin's electronic camera image quality in 1932.

Modern CCD cameras and LCD screens have only the vaguest relationship to the cathode ray tubes of Zworykin or Farnsworth. In the case of modern DLP micromirror TV projectors, the display device IS mechanical, with moving "nanomirror" arrays and a rotating colour wheel. Mechanical television also survives in receivers and cameras designed special purposes, or for public displays, such as the DynaScan web site (look for dynascanusa).

So pardon this historian - an Australian with no particular affiliation to any of these inventors' countries of origin - for sticking his neck out quite categorically and saying, ON THE BASIS OF THESE DEFINITIONS, it's Baird!

Regards to all,

Christopher Long, amateur radio operator VK3AML, Melbourne, Australia.

REFERENCES:

Albert Abramson: "The History Of Television, 1880 to 1941", McFarland & Co., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina; and London, England, 1987.

George and May Shiers: "Early Television, A Bibliographic Guide to 1940", Garland Publishing Inc., New York and London, 1997.

Donald F McLean: "Restoring Baird's Image", Institution Of Electrical Engineers, London, 2000.

Bruce Norman: "Here's Looking At You, The Story Of British Television 1908 - 1939", BBC and Royal Television Society, London, 1984.

R W Burns: "Television: An International History Of The Formative Years", IEE History Of Technology Series, Vol 22, London, 1998.

A H Sommer: "Photoemissive Materials", John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1968.		 6/1/2008
DEVIL That was not bad but u need to put where they live and other stuuf.
U shude thanks me because i gave u a ider.ha.But that's okay.
I Know?More good people. yes!		 5/15/2008
Ken WOW! that was good raly good i am so good.Thanks alote. I neede it for home work. Im in yearh 12. 5/15/2008
DAKAYLA hey u people !!!! give us some more info. cause if u knew me u will give me a hole lot of info. cause im starving for more INFORMATON!!!! 4/14/2008
Ishiua HELLO PEOPLE 4/7/2008
tommy verecetty you keep the who invented the television his name and how he invented 3/20/2008
corben my name is corben bleu 2/11/2008
Vienna Why don't you list your sources? 2/1/2008
Lindsay McKirdy My email is grapho at hotmail com

 12/30/2007
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