“To have the right idea is one thing. To have the right idea and make it work is everything.” – Roger Penrose ___________________ Having the right idea and making it work – that is what Philo T. Farnsworth did nearly 100 years ago. In the 1920s, while the great minds of science wrestled with 19th […]
The Centennial Is Coming: 9/7/2027 Read More »
The address is 202 Green Street, San Francisco, California. And while that address lacks the immediate recognition of, say, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave or No. 10 Downing Street, it is no less of an historic landmark. Because here, in 1927, the most ubiquitous appliance in human history made its first appearance on earth. We are talking
For the Birthplace of Video: A Not-So-Modest Proposal Read More »
As the industry ramps up for Sunday’s 2024 Emmy Awards telecast, have a look at the trophy’s namesake: The Image Orthicon tube. It is based on patent number 2,087,683 – which was awarded to Philo T. Farnsworth in 1937.* This is the camera tube that supplied most or the television signals in the late
“Emmy”…. Meet “Immy” Read More »
Some of you know that for the past couple of months I have been ‘laser focused’ (I actually hate that expression, but it does seem to express the ADHD way I go at some things) on the presentation I delivered to The Cosmic Summit on Saturday June 15. I have to admit that being part
The Future Is Prologue: Cosmic Summit 2024 Read More »
As Philo-The-Third told me, his father – Philo T. Farnsworth The Second – had ‘two major cases in his life. The first was electronic video. You wouldn’t be looking at this if he hadn’t cracked that one back in the 1920s. Over the course of the next thirty-plus years, Farnsworth gained as much first-hand knowledge
Now Available on Audible and Amazon: The Audiobook! Read More »
More than fifty years after I first heard of Philo T. Farnsworth (in the summer if 1973)… More than twenty years after The Boy Who Invented Television was first published… And a year after it was re-published (after the release of The Man Who Mastered Gravity)… There is finally going to be an audiobook edition!
Coming Soon: TBWIT – The Audiobook! Read More »
Quantum Mechanics had a moment last summer, thanks to ‘Oppenheimer.’ But ‘Oppenheimer’ also reminded me of an important historical footnote that too often gets overlooked in our preoccupation with blowing things up and the prospect of human annihilation: that television, and video in general, also derives from the same scientific breakthroughs in the early 20th
The Quantum Origins Of Television Read More »
Have you seen Oppenheimer yet? As the world braced itself over recent weeks for the cultural shock wave of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, I have been preoccupied by one scene in the trailer. It’s the scene where Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) meets Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) at the edge of a pond on the grounds of the
Oppenheimer, Einstein – And Farnsworth Read More »
Visitors to this site who might want to follow an erudite discussion of the myriad issues around the theatrical release of Oppenheimer might want to hop on over to this discussion at fusor.net. Registration is required to add your 2¢.
I have written a couple of things in the past week about what ties my two books together. I’ve also discussed both books in a couple of podcasts. Rather than duplicate that content on this site, I’ll put links to the things I’ve posted on my other sites: A Tale of Two Biographies Part 1
Tales of Two Biographies Read More »
