The Boy Who Invented Television: A Story of Inspiration, Persistence and Quiet Passion
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While the great minds of science, financed by the biggest companies in the world, wrestled with 19th century answers to a 20th century problem, Philo T. Farnsworth, age 14, dreamed of trapping light in an empty jar and transmitting it, one line at a time, on a magnetically deflected beam of electrons. Farnsworth was a farm boy from Rigby, Idaho, with virtually no knowledge of electronics when he first sketched his idea for electronic television on a blackboard for his high school science teacher. Fifteen years later, his teacher would recreate that sketch as part of his testimony in patent litigation between Farnsworth and the giant Radio Corporation of America. In 1930, Farnsworth was awarded the fundamental patents for modern television; but he had to spend the next decade fighting off challenges to his patents by the giant Radio Corporation of America and defending his vision against his own shortsighted investors who did not share his larger dream of scientific independence. The Boy Who Invented Television traces Farnsworth's guided tour of discovery, describing the observations he made in the course of developing and improving his initial invention and revealing how his unique insights brought him to the threshold of what could have been an even greater discovery-clean, safe, and unlimited energy from controlled nuclear fusion. Wired Magazine Paul Schatzkin's biography of Philo T. Farnsworth puts anything actually on the tube to shame.
Prologue: The Second Case1Chapter 1This Place Has Electricity!7Chapter 2The Other Woman23Chapter 3The Daring of This Boy's Mind!35Chapter 4The Damn Thing Works43Chapter 5Something a Banker Can Understand55Chapter 6Out of the Ashes67Chapter 7A Beautiful Instrument79Chapter 8Nothing Here We'll Need93Chapter 9Suspended Animation107Chapter 10We Want Cash!125Chapter 11Something for Nothing135Chapter 12You're All Fired147Chapter 13Caught in the Crossfire159Chapter 14Gone Fishin'171Chapter 15Loggerheads181Chapter 16False Dawn187Chapter 17It's My Baby199Chapter 18Stars in a Jar211Chapter 19That's All I Need to See227Chapter 20Tranquility Base237Epilogue: The Sword in the Stone243Appendix AWho Invented Television?249Appendix BThe Story of The Book259Notes269Index279
