Invent Now | Hall of Fame | Search





			Philo Taylor Farnsworth Born Aug 19 1906 - Died Mar 11 1971 Television System Cathode-Ray Tube Patent Number(s) 1,773,980 Inducted 1984 Farnsworth's basic television patents covered scanning, focusing, synchronizing, contrast, controls, and power. He also invented the first cold cathode ray tubes and the first simple electronic microscope. He used radio waves to get direction (later called radar) and black light for seeing at night (used in World War II). Invention Impact Philo Taylor Farnsworth's electronic inventions took all of the moving parts out of televisions and made possible today's TV industry, the TV shots from the moon, and satellite pictures. Inventor Bio Born in Beaver, Utah, Farnsworth, was educated in the Utah and Idaho public school systems and while at Rigby (Idaho) High School in 1921 delved into the molecular theory of matter, electrons and the Einstein theory. He also studied automobile engines and chemistry. Farnsworth attended high school at Provo in the fall of 1923 and in 1924 enrolled in Brigham Young University. He left the university at the end of his second year due to the death of his father. In 1926 Farnsworth joined the Crocker Research Laboratories in San Francisco. At the age of 20 he produced the first all-electronic television image. Crocker Research Laboratories was later reorganized as Television Laboratories, Inc., and in May 1929 was renamed Farnsworth Television Inc., of California.During the 1960s he worked on special-purpose TV, missiles, and the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Before his death, he worked on a nuclear fusion process to produce clean, virtually unlimited energy; he held two fusion energy patents. When he died at age 64, he held more than 300 U.S. and foreign patents. He was one of four inventors honored in September 1983 by the U.S. Postal Service with issuance of a stamp bearing his portrait.