The Untold Story of the Inventor of Television: A Forgotten Genius (2002)

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Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer.[2] He made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television.[3] He is perhaps best known for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the "image dissector", as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. He was also the first person to demonstrate such a system to the public.[4][5] Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera, which he produced commercially in the firm of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation, from 1938 to 1951, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.[6][7] In later life, Farnsworth invented a small nuclear fusion device, the Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor, or simply "fusor", employing inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC). Although not a practical device for generating nuclear energy, the fusor serves as a viable source of neutrons.[8] The design of this device has been the acknowledged inspiration for other fusion approaches including the Polywell reactor concept in terms of a general approach to fusion design.[9] Farnsworth held 165 patents, mostly in radio and television. The Philo Awards named after Philo Farnsworth is an annual public-access television cable TV competition where the winners receive notice for their efforts in various categories in producing Community Media. Several buildings and streets around rural Brownfield, Maine are named for Farnsworth as he lived there for some time.[1] A 1983 United States postage stamp honored Farnsworth. Farnsworth is one of the inventors honored with a plaque in the Walt Disney World's "Inventor's Circle" in Future World West in Epcot.[66] The eccentric broadcast engineer in the 1989 film UHF is named Philo in tribute to Farnsworth. On the Beakman's World Season 1, Episode 10, aired Nov 14, 1992 "Levers, Beakmania, & Television" Paul Zaloom appears as the "guest scientist" Philo T. Farnsworth explaining his own invention. Since 2003, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) has awarded the Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award on an irregular schedule, to companies who have significantly affected the state of television and broadcast engineering over a long period of time. The Farnsworth Invention, a stage play by Aaron Sorkin which debuted in 2007 after Sorkin adapted it from his unproduced screenplay, dramatized the conflict arising from Farnsworth's invention of TV and David Sarnoff of RCA's alleged stealing of the design. The 2009 SyFy television series Warehouse 13 features a video communicator affectionately called "The Farnsworth." In the show's universe, Philo Farnsworth built at least five of these communicators after creating television (including a very personalised one used by him) though it's possible he made more than that. He also has a "Farnsworth aisle" in the Warehouse which includes not just some parts and items created by him, but some of his nuclear fusion experiments that one character claims to still be "kicking." Farnsworth also makes an appearance in an episode in a flashback set in 1944 during Season 2. On January 10, 2011, Farnsworth was inducted by Mayor Gavin Newsom into the newly established San Francisco Hall of Fame, in the science and technology category. In the video game Trenched, renamed as Iron Brigade, the main antagonist is a character named Vladamir Farnsworth, who created mechanical enemies known as "Tubes" which spread a deadly broadcast. This character name is alluding to Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir K. Zworykin, who invented the iconoscope. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2013. He is recognized in the Hall of Fame of the Indiana Broadcast Pioneers which notes that in addition to his inventive accomplishments his company owned and operated WGL radio in Fort Wayne. Indiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_Farnsworth