(this post is an excerpt from the new Afterword that will be appended to the updated 2023 Edition of The Boy Who Invented Television.) In September 2002, Pem Farnsworth was invited to make an appearance at the 54th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards: About midway through the telecast, host Conan O’Brien paused at the edge of …
…and in our pockets, now. Well, sorta. It’s not exactly the theory of relativity, but it’s all part of the same cosmology. Which we take entirely for granted. I posted a piece on the Townsend Brown website about the connections between Albert Einstein, the papers he published in 1905, and the inventing of television: Source: …
Television: The Theory of Relativity In Our Living Room Read More »
Above, the first hand-drawn rendering of the Image Dissector, ca. 1922. Arguably, every video display on the planet – including the one you are looking at now – can trace its origins to this drawing, which was presented during patent litigation in the 1930s. Sadly, the myth that television was “too complex” for a …
Jessica Moulton, with her grand uncle Skee Farnsworth and cousin Philo Krishna Farnsworth, accepting the induction of Philo Farnsworth into the TV Academy’s Hall of Fame, along with Ron Howard, also inducted on March 11, 2013 Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet Jessica Lauren Moulton – the great-grandaughter of Philo and Pem Farnsworth. Her mother Camille …
“The most effective lies are the ones built around a fragile germ of truth.” —Andy Greenwald Please step aside as I dust of my lance and go looking for windmills one more time… For… ohm’god has it really been seven years now! – Aaron Sorkin’s play The Farnsworth Invention has presented a loosely twisted …
Here We Go Again:
An Open Letter to The Palo Alto Players Read More »
This just showed up in my Google alerts: World’s Fair Predicted TV’s Future (link to actual article since deceased) The article is a look back at the introduction of television at the NYC World’s Fair in April, 1939 – the one where David Sarnoff famously and pompously pronounced, “Now we add sight to sound.” “Philo …
We were in Los Angeles last month – for Philo Farnsworth's induction into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame. I suppose I should post some photos, but the whole experience was… well, let's just put it mildly and say that it was discouraging, and leave it at that. Maybe there will be more to say …
There's been an increase in traffic to this site in the past week or so, which is quite possibly a result of the recent news that Philo T. Farnsworth – arguably the man who started it all – will be inducted next month into the Television Hall of Fame: This year’s honorees include Emmy®-winning actor/director/producer …
With the news of Neil Armstrong's passing yesterday , I am reminded that what always most impressed me about the moon landing in 1969 was not the fact of the landing itself, but the fact that more than half-a-billion people on earth witnessed the event via television – still the largest audience ever assembled for …
Now theater goers in Australia can hear Aaron Sorkin's twisted take on history, where "priority of invention" is awarded to the guy who actually LOST the case. Thankfully theatre goers will have a little help keeping track of proceedings, with a central narrator setting up each scene to avoid confusion. “One of the characters will …
