Electronic Television: A Great Depression And The World's Fair | 2

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2020

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While Philo Farnsworth was building gizmos out of a loft in San Francisco, the Radio Corporation of America was already plotting domination of the yet-to-be television industry under the leadership of a man named David Sarnoff. Sarnoff recognized television’s virtually limitless potential, and he was determined to bring it to the masses — with or without the help of Philo Farnsworth.

Sarnoff would rely on inventors like Vladimir Zworykin, who had also figured out how to transmit pictures electronically through his patented Iconoscope. At least, in theory. The missing piece wouldn’t fall into place until Zworykin visited Farnsworth’s lab — setting off a court battle to claim ownership of one of the most iconic inventions of the 20th century.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American innovations, add free on Amazon music, download
0:06.0	the app today.
0:14.0	It's 1930.
0:15.5	The world is stuck in the early stages of the Great Depression.
0:19.3	Many Americans lift their spirits at the new moving picture shows and theaters and Nickelodeon's,
0:24.7	Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin comedies.
0:27.8	These films are often introduced with Mickey Mouse cartoons or newsreels.
0:31.8	One newsreel, in particular, dazzles the audience, with the promise of soon bringing these
0:36.6	new moving picture shows into their very own homes.
0:40.2	Popular science presents a backstage preview of television, the newest miracle of modern
0:44.2	electrical engineering.
0:46.2	Mr. Philo T. Pondsworth, shown at the right, is working on the image de-sector tube, a
0:50.4	photoelectric camera tube of his own invention that distinguishes his system of television
0:54.8	from others.
0:55.8	It is said to be responsible for the most clearly defined television pictures.
1:00.4	Placed in the circuit of this receiving system is a funnel-shaped cathode tube.
1:04.3	The round flat surface of its bulb becomes the picture screen in studio monitor sets, as
1:08.8	well as in home receiving sense.
1:11.3	The image de-sector tube and the cathode oscillite tube are the heart and brain of the Pondsworth
1:15.8	system.
1:17.8	Philo Pondsworth's image de-sector tube and camera system had finally brought the long-anticipated
1:23.7	picture radio into being.
	...

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