Philo Farnsworth

Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. He is best known for his 1927 invention of 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. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera—which he produced commercially through the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation from 1938 to 1951, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In later life, Farnsworth invented a small nuclear fusion device, the Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor, employing inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC). It was not a practical device for generating nuclear power, though it provides a viable source of neutrons. The design of this device has been the inspiration for other fusion approaches, including the Polywell reactor concept. Farnsworth held 300 patents, mostly in radio and television.

Official Website of Philo Farnsworth

 * This has made it all worthwhile. (The live televised first step by Neil Armstrong on the moon.)
 * The Boy Who Invented Television – Auth. Paul Schatzkin


 * 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. (to his son, on television)
 * The Boy Who Invented Television and Kent Farnsworth


 * The damned thing works! (telegram, on the first successful television broadcast)
 * George Everson

Quotes about Farnsworth

 * Phil saw television as a marvelous teaching tool. There would be no excuse of illiteracy. Parents could learn along with their children. News and sporting events could be seen as they were happening. Symphonies would mean more when one could see the musicians as they played, and movies would be seen in our own living rooms. He said there would be a time when we would be able to see and learn about people in other lands. If we understood them better, differences could be settled around conference tables, without going to war.
 * Elma "Pen" Farnsworth on "Philo Taylor Farnsworth", Brigham Young University Highschool.

Official Website of Philo Farnsworth

 * If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.
 * Johnny Carson


 * I wish there was a knob on the TV so you could turn up the intelligence. They got one marked “brightness” but it don’t work, does it?
 * Leo Anthony Gallagher


 * I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.
 * Groucho Marx


 * They say that ninety percent of TV is junk. But, ninety percent of everything is junk.
 * Gene Roddenberry