Is this guy named after the guy who dreamed up TV? Not to dork out or anything, just reading over it while making a web site for homework.
Tribute? prof farnsworth
Dec 6, 199938 posts by 16 posters
38 posts
James W Sager Iii wrote:
No. TV was invented by Manfred von Ardenne and Paul Nipkow.
How tactfull.
In article , "Martin' Anakin' Schmidt" wrote:
<much snippage, related to the 'who invented television' debate> I can't believe nobody's mentioned Vladimir Zworykin yet! Sheesh, you invent the iconoscope, and eighty years later nobody remembers you name. Also, for the record, Nipkow's 'television' was mechanical, rather than electronic. It stands to modern television as Babbage's 'engines' do to digital computers. Gosh, this is fun - reminds me of college, except I've shaved recently. Robert Jane: "Ah . . .back to the serenity of dreamland." Daria: "Yeah. . . hope that firebreathing cyclops hasn't caught me yet." "Daria" (c) MTV
As far as I know, Philo Farnsworth patented the system, Zworkin improved the picture tube design. (BTW they WERE professional rivals.)
RVW <<
Zworykin was called "the father of television". However, he disclaimed the title, pointing out that many others had contributed to state of the art.
How refreshing to find a person who contributed a great deal to his field but who did not become arrogant !
In 1880 Maurice LeBlanc, a French engineer, conceived the idea of sequential scanning for TV, describing it in an article published in La Lumi�re �lectrique. However, mechanical means for effectuating the idea proved impractical. The Nipkow disc simply would not do. For one thing, to obtain a frame repetition rate high enough to eliminate flicker, say 25 frames/second, the disc would have to rotate at 1,500 rpm. For a disc several feet in diameter the centrifugal force would be very great, especially with glass lenses near the outer edge of the disc. (That was before the era of transparent plastics.)
The Nipkow disc wasted the time, money, and thoughts of a number of talented men.
In 1908, A.A. Campbell Swinton, an English engineer, realized that mechanical scanning would not do. He wrote that the "problem can probably be solved by the employment of two beams of kathode rays (one at the transmitting and one at the receiving station) synchronously deflected by the varying fields of two electromagnets placed at right angles to one another and energised by two alternating electric currents of widely different frequecies, so the moving extremities of the two beams are caused to sweep synchronously over the whole of the required surfaces within the one-tenth of a second necessary to take advantage of visual persistence."
Those familiar with electronics will recognize Swinton's hypothetical devices as the TV-transmitter image orthicon tube and the TV-receiver picture tube. What a brilliant insight so early in the game ! To be sure, a great deal of development work was needed to perfect the devices, but the basic concept was sound.
Unfortunately, Swinton's idea was ahead of its time. In 1908 the technical infrastructure for actualizing his idea did not exist. What was required was the amplifying vacuum tube. It could generate the requisite sweep voltages and do the necessary amplification and creation of transmitter r.f. The amplifying vacuum tube did not come along until the early 1920's, following Lee De Forest's insertion of a grid in the diode vacuum tube, giving it the ability to amplify. Television could then move ahead.
The insight into the basic needs of television by LeBlanc and Swinton are at the very heart of present-day television. Although LeBlanc's vibrating mirrors were infeasible, the basic concepts of LeBlanc and Swinton, rather than Nipkow's impractical rotating disc, are what have given us television.
No, there's no record of Al Gore playing any part in the development of TV !
Mechanically based television died hard. A historian of TV wrote, "Almost every conceivable type of scanner was suggested in the period 1877-1936. There were vibrating mirrors, rocking mirrors, rotating mirrors, mirror polyhedra, mirror drums, mirror screws, mirror discs and scintillating studs; there were lens discs, lens drums, circles of lenses, lenticular slices, reciprocating lenses, lens cascades, and eccentrically rotating lenses; there were rocking prisms, sliding prisms, reciprocating prisms, prism discs, prism rings, electric prisms, lens prisms and rotating prism pairs; there were apertured discs, apertured bands, apertured drums, vibrating apertures, intersecting slots, multispiral apertures, and ancillary slotted discs; there were cell banks, lamp banks, rotary cell discs, neon discs, corona discs, convolute neon tubes, tubes with bubbles in them; there were cathode-ray tubes, Lenard tubes, X- ray tubes, tubes with fluorescent screens, glass screens, photo- electric matrices, secondary-emitting surfaces, electroscope screens, Schlieren screens and no screens at all."
In the midst of that turmoil, the New York Times wrote, "Great as has been the success of talking movies, they may easily be outdone by radio-television if the technical difficulties are overcome.
Yeah, but as a result of his lack of conceit, nobody outisde of a few esoteric circles has ever heard of him. Arrogance, historically, has been rewarded with notoriety and fame.
Besides, when the $500 answer under the 'Utah' category came up on Jeopardy as "This Utah resident invented television." was given on Jeopardy, the correct response (or the one that easrned the money and control of the board) was 'Philo Farnsworth.' If it's goor enough for Alex Trebek, it's good enough for me.
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Ikarus <<
There have been numerous conflicting claims about who invented TV and the country in which it was invented. Many of these opposing claims demonstrate national chauvinism. ("My country is better than yours.") So the question of precedence in the invention of TV should be approached with caution.
Henry Ford said, “History is bunkâ€Â. The chronicles of the development of TV amply illustrate his remark.
Complicating the matter of priority in TV is the question of just what is meant by the words "invent" and “televisionâ€Â. In chauvinist propaganda, words are interpreted loosely. For example, Paul Nipkow, a German engineer, conceived his Nipkow disc in 1883 and received German patent No. 30105 for the invention. On that basis, there is a German claim that TV was invented in that country, even though the Nipkow disc never reached the stage of practical television.
The Nipkow disc has the following defects:
1. The limited number and size of holes does not allow adequate resolution of the image.
2. An attempt to improve resolution by using smaller and more holes results in less light passing through each hole, necessitating extremely bright illumination of the televised scene.
3. If scanning is to be in approximately a straight line, the disc must be much larger than the televised scene. (John Baird used discs up to 8 feet in diameter ! ) Spinning a large disc at the necessary speed presents problems, including centrifugal force, and the gyroscope effect if the camera is turned to left or right.
Furthermore, Nipkow was not the first person to conceive the idea of scanning, in which a scene to be televised is scrutinized in sequential strips, with each strip being scrutinized in turn along its length. The idea was first brought up in 1880 by French engineer Maurice LeBlanc. He suggested accomplishing this with a single photocell and vibrating mirrors which would scan the televised scene. The vibrating mirrors were not practical. In 1882 William Lucas, an Englishman, suggested scanning the scene to be televised with a small beam of light which would be directed by moving lenses. This, too, proved impractical.
Apparently it is not known whether Nipkow had learned of LeBlanc’s idea. His concept of a rotating disc with a spiral of holes was a brilliant, if impractical, idea. But he had been preceded in the idea of scanning – and in inventions, prior conception is supreme.
Perhaps LeBlanc could be said to have invented television. All television since his time uses the scanning concept he originated.
The Nipkow disc was not the only mechanical system used in early TV experimentation. A large variety of mirror-, lens-, and prism-based systems were tried.
One of the mirror-drum systems, with on-the-air transmission, was demonstrated on January 13, 1928. On that date a group of reporters and others gathered at a GE laboratory near Schenectady, NY. On a screen 3" square they saw the image of Leslie Wilkins, a member of the testing department, being transmitted from a nearby building with voice accompaniment. He gave some demonstrations such as, “Now I will take off my spectacles and put them on again†and “Here is a cigarette. You can see the smokeâ€Â. This was followed by a musical rendition of “Ain’t She Sweet†played by Louis Dean on his ukelele.
The demonstration was viewed by several GE officials in their homes.
Technical characteristics of the demonstration were as follows:
Lines: 48. Frame replication rate: 16 frames per second. Scanning: interlaced. Scanning system: a mirror drum using 24 mirrors and two light beams. Picture transmission: by radio station 2XAF on a wavelength of 37.8 meters. Sound transmission: by radio station WGY on 379.5 meters.
After the demonstration GE issued a press release saying, “Home television was developed by Dr. E.F.W. Alexanderson, consulting engineer of the Radio Corporation of America and the General Electric Company, and his assistants.†Thus, GE/RCA crowned itself as the inventor of home television, ignoring all the earlier work done by others.
Sorry about the strange characters appearing in my posts. If you just ignore them the posts will read alright.
I don't know what's causing it. The posts look OK when I send them. Maybe I've got a virus.
Wyde Wing wrote:
Maybe you transferred a MS Word document to your remarq.com post?
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 21:14:38 -0800, Wyde Wing wrote:
<snip>
There was a single frame image transmission system (a forerunner of the fax machine) in use in the late 1700's. It was used by Napoleon to transmit maps over telegraph wires. It used synchronized mechanical pendulums to scan a raised image on a copper plate. This was the earliest use of line scanning that I know of. The machine was dismantled and forgotten after the war.
They re-built a working version and demonstrated it on the show Connections.
--Larry
Wait, not to dork out but you're reading this ng while making a web page for homework? I'd hate to see you dork out or whatever that means... Sincerely, Little Girl
James W Sager Iii wrote:
Yes, Philo Farnsworth.
But you'll get arguments from folks who think others invented TV.
Ignore 'em. Like Groening did.
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Hang on everybody! Here we go again.
wrote:
Since there was no new episode this week, we need some traffic. :-)
So we're running "Best of a.t.f".
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Obviously, we don't have much to go on.
On Tue, 07 Dec 1999 04:19:29 GMT, [email] wrote:
For the last time, hopefully, let me clear this up. Al Gore invented TV! So there!
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Like most complex systems, TV was not invented by any one person. The first transmission of moving pictures was based on a spinning metal disc and was never widely used. There were several "inventors" after that. Today, there are at least four common formats for TV, each with their own "inventors".
Philo Farnsworth was definitely on of the early pioneers of TV. He made the first "all electronic" transmission of moving pictures and held the patents for synchronization and other technologies still used in modern TV systems. He also worked on the first satellite transmission of moving pictures. He clearly deserves some recognition which doesn't take away anything from the many others who contributed to the creation of modern TV.
From: http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/millennium/inventions.html
--Larry
Larry Finkelstein wrote:
Why? Isn't photography is enough for Gore?
Excerpts from netnews.alt.tv.futurama: 7-Dec-99 Re: Tribute? prof farnsworth by Martin '. [email]
And he made wild claims, like he invented the question mark.
I don't recall him saying that.
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Dave wrote in message news:[email]...
It's a reference to Austin Powers (more specifically, Dr. Evil's soliloquy about his childhood, pretty standard really).
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"Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'Sir' without adding, 'You're making a scene.'" -Homer Simpson
I get it now. Obviously, I haven't seen the movie.
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Excerpts from netnews.alt.tv.futurama: 9-Dec-99 Re: Tribute? prof farnsworth by [email]
I'd recommend seeing the first. Its really funny in some parts. I'd prolly get some static from people, but I felt the second was much more off center. It was just so silly that I didn't like watching it much. I think it grossed so much money because the first was a sleeper film, only later people realized how good it was so when the second came out, there had already been a lot of talk of the first one to make it 'pop culture'. I dunno, thats just my theory.
I think there's generally too big a rush to film a sequel to any movie that does well at the box office. As a rule, sequels are worse than their originals.
As for the Austin Powers movies, from what I've already been exposed to, I know that I absolutely CAN'T STAND the Austin Powers character while I really like the Dr. Evil character. I was thinking of renting the movie and fast forwarding through the distasteful parts and just watching the parts with the Doctor. Maybe I won't get the plot, but how good could the plot be?
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Sez ratboy::
Yes, well Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn broke that rule. And some would argue that Return of the Jedi (episode 6) is better than the Phantom Menace (episode 1). But i won't argue about the whole Star Wars quadrogy.
On Wed, 08 Dec 1999 12:37:41 -0500, Dave wrote:
Al Gore meant to say something about how he was a big supported of the internet. Instead he said something about helping invent it. The original internet was developed long before Gore had anything to do with it.
He was, of course, mocked very seriously for his statement and in fact, is still being mocked.
--Larry
Vote Gore in 2000: It's theoretically possible to do worse.
Hmm, that doesn't make it sound as bad as I thought. I guess it would be like donuts...someone would ask Homer if he liked donuts. He might respond, "I like them so much I practically invented them!" All the flak on Gore doesn't seem quite fair. But I'm kind of biased, because I say so many unintentionally incoherent, stupid-sounding things when speaking out loud that it's no wonder I prefer the net.
Hey I think I just thought of a new piece for the non-stop Simpsons clip-show I've been trying to write in my head...
"I wish they had never invented fried cheese." "Hey, I invented that!"
Excerpts from netnews.alt.tv.futurama: 13-Dec-99 Re: Tribute? prof farnsworth by Eric [email]
Comparing someone by saying,"Well they're not that stupid, Homer Simpson may have made that comment." is pretty much insulting them once over again.
He can't be all that bad of a guy, I mean the Nazi's used to do that.
Come on, he's not all that ugly, the hunchback had those too.
Hey, he's almost as masculine as Hanson, don't go claiming androdgeny.
In article ,
invented
Ya know Them Chestnuts are really lazy.
No no no, Al Gore invented the Internet, The computer, The Federalism, and the Celcius thermometer. (and the only reason it's called Celcius because 30 degrees Celcius sounds better than 30 degrees Gore)
Dave wrote:
Why? Farnsworth didn't invent TV first. That's a fact, not a guess.
It's a fact, as you were taught it.
History is written by the victor, Marty. Guys like Manfred routinely get lost in the void and forgotten by most everybody, while guys like Farnsworth receive the credit and get cartoon characters named for them.
So even if Farsworth is given nearly universal credit for "inventing the TV", you can still feel smug in your knowledge of the real truth.
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dumb children with no parental supervision, and access to a hammer.Dave wrote:
routinely
like
them.
But only in the US. In Germany Ardenne and Nipkow are the inventors and the Brits and Russians have their own inventors of TV.
It seems TV was somthing that had to exsist.