"There's nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this household, and I don't want it in your intellectual diet." - Philo Farnsworth's feelings about watching television.

American engineer, Philo Farnsworth was born on August 19, 1906, on Indian Creek in Beaver County, Utah. His parents expected him to become a concert violinist, but his interests drew him to experiments with electricity. At the age of 12, he built an electric motor and produced the first electric washing machine his family had ever owned.

Philo Farnsworth attended Brigham Young University in Utah, where he researched television picture transmission. While in high school, Philo Farnsworth had already conceived of his ideas for television. In 1926, he cofounded Crocker Research Laboratories, which he later renamed Farnsworth Television, Inc. in 1929 (and as Farnsworth Radio and Television Corporation in 1938.)

In 1927, Philo Farnsworth was the first inventor to transmit a television image comprised of 60 horizontal lines. The image transmitted was a dollar sign. Farnsworth developed the dissector tube, the basis of all current electronic televisions. He filed for his first television patent in 1927 (pat#1,773,980.) Although he won an early patent for his image dissection tube, he lost later patent battles to RCA. Philo Farnsworth went on to invent over 165 different devices including equipment for converting an optical image into an electrical signal, amplifier, cathode-ray, vacuum tubes, electrical scanners, electron multipliers and photoelectric materials.

Philo Farnsworth died on March 11, 1971, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Farnsworth's Patent

Television: The Farnsworth Chronicles 1906-1971
The full story of Philo Farnsworth, the boy who invented modern television.

Biography of Philo Farnsworth
The farm boy who conceived the basic operating principles of electronic television at the age of just 13 years.

Television
Brief information on inventor Philo Farnsworth and the "Television System."

Philo Farnsworth
Philo Farnsworth invented electronic television - Invention Dimension.

The Farnsworth Vs Zworykin Debate
Who invented the electronic television system first?

Return to The History of Television

Philo Taylor Farnsworth
Philo Taylor Farnsworth invented the current system of television transmission and reception.

Related Innovations
Television
Video

Patent Drawing From United States Patent & Trademark Office

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