Who Invented the Television?: Sarnoff vs. Farnsworth
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TWO TELEVISIONEERS CHAPTER 1 A TEEN GENIUS CHAPTER 2 THE RADIO EXECUTIVE CHAPTER 3 THE PATENT WAR CHAPTER 4 THE FATHER OF TELEVISION INVENTOR MATCHUP TIMELINE SOURCE NOTES GLOSSARY FURTHER INFORMATION INDEX
INTRODUCTION TWO TELEVISIONEERS Time is ticking down on the biggest game of the season the Super Bowl Suddenly the quarterback finds an open man and launches the ball through the air Touchdown And you see it all in perfect clarity A giant screen stretches out across the wall in front of you As the fans in the stadium celebrate the sound booms from your set Watching the Super Bowl on television lets you see the action from above the stadium down on the field and even from the players point of view Television has shared some historic moments with people around the world from presidential debates to the first moon landing But watching live events from your home was not always such a simple thing Even a century ago sending moving pictures with sound through the air seemed incredible maybe even impossible
This 1912 movie camera was called a kinetograph Its movies were shown on the kinetoscope a device that only one person could use at a time By the early twentieth century the movie camera was recording moving pictures and radio was sending sounds through the air Coming up with a way to merge these two technologies was the key to making television happen In just forty years television would become a phenomenon that swept across the United States But it was a difficult race to get to the first simple television broadcast Two all star competitors stood out from the rest These two televisioneers would be on each other's heels to invent the first version of the television we know The underdog was Philo T Farnsworth a farm boy turned scientist The high profile champion was the influential radio executive David Sarnoff The battle would last more than a decade and cost millions of dollars
