September 18, 2013 • 35 mins
Phylo T. Farnsworth is called the "Father of Television" -- his initial idea for electronic television came to him as a teen. He's also become something of an icon representing the little guy -- he battled big business in in a patent suit.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and we've had some scientist episodes
lately and we're going to have another. YEP. If any
(00:21):
of our listeners watch Futurama, you will recognize the name Farnsworth.
But unless you listen to the creator's commentary tracks on
the show DVD releases, or you are a fan of
television history, you might not know that the crotchety mad
scientist on the show is actually named for a real
scientists of the twentieth century who was a Utah farm
(00:41):
boy that actually kind of changed the way humans see
the world. You know, who might recognize the name and
the connection. Who people who watch Warehouse their teen Oh yeah,
which I don't watch. I have that point of they
have these Farnsworth devices that are totally based on this technology,
and there is even it's a little well at this
point's got some age on. It hasn't been updated in
(01:02):
a while. Free iOS app that makes sure iPhone into
a Farnsworth device. Interesting, and the scientists were talking about
today is Filo T. Farnsworth, And he was interested in
science almost from birth. He was inventing things as early
as grade school. But his real claim to fame in
(01:23):
terms of technology is uh in television. He also has
become something of an icon representing the little guy because
he went up against a big business in a patent
lawsuit and kind of a David versus Goliath situation. Yeah,
which ends both happily and sadly. Yeah, it does. It
(01:44):
doesn't have quite as satisfying and ending as the David
and Goliath story. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little later.
He will. He's a fascinating, fascinating and so insightful at
such an early age that it kind of blows my mind. Uh.
And I also feel compelled to mention right out of
the gate that a lot of the history with him
(02:06):
is all based on verbal accounts that various people have given,
so there's some variation, like sometimes even his age will change,
you know, in two different versions of the story, even
though they're close and will account for most of those.
But it would really becombersome to be like, well, this
person said he was, you know, it was this year.
This person said it was this year. If they're close,
(02:29):
I don't always like break out and go, No, this
was two different accounts that they were assume there might
be some age range changes by you know, we're dealing
with an oral account, yes, since all oral history coming
from multiple people for much of the earlier part. So
he was born, we know, in Utah in August of
(02:50):
nineteen o six. He was born in August nineteen His
name was Philo Taylor Farnsworth and uh. He was born
in a log cabin that was actually built by his grandfather,
who was Mormon pioneer. So he was part of a
Utah family that had really come over with the Mormon
tradition as they came to kind of settle the area.
(03:11):
When he was twelve, the family moved to Franklin, Idaho,
and his first sort of scientific triumph happened when he
was thirteen. He entered a National Science contest which was
sponsored by Science and Invention magazine, and he won it.
And his idea was a tamper proof lock for a
Model T ignition switch. Apparently at the time there really
(03:32):
wasn't like a way to lock a Model T all
the keys were basically the same for the ignition from
car to car to car. So he had figured out
a way to make one key for one car. Somehow
the idea of of a model te theft ring brought
on by non secure ignitions, which is it's really funny
to me. During high school, he converted all of his
(03:56):
family's home appliances to electric power, which is pretty impressive
considering that they had not had electricity in their home
until he was fourteen. Yeah, and he allegedly learned all
of this. Uh. The sort of apocryphal story is that
he found electrical manuals and like technical diagrams in the
(04:18):
house that they had moved into at some point that
the previous owner had left behind, and he just studied
those and learned how electricals worked. As a kid, you know,
I can see an adult doing that, like having kind
of the focus of mine to like break it down.
That's what happens on Orange is the New Black? Is
this what happens? Uh? And then when he was uh
(04:41):
sixteen or thirteen or fourteen or fifteen, depending on who
you talked to. Uh, some accounts say it was nineteen
twenty one. There's actually a television appearance that Farnsworth made
where he says it's ninety two, but we know it's
right around fifteen or sixteen. Uh, he sketched out a
concept for a vacuum tube and he showed it to
his high school chemistry. Chemistry teacher, Justin Tollman and farms
(05:04):
Worth had detailed this idea that by controlling the speed
and direction of electrons, he could turn electricity into pictures
using the vacuum tube. The idea was that the tube
would shoot electrons toward a screen and project an image.
And this was all theoretical. He hadn't, of course, been
able to test any of this. He was just thinking
through how he thought it would work. He had kind
of made it up in his head and drawn it. Yeah,
(05:27):
And according to legend, he got the idea from the
parallel plowing rows on the family farm, thinking that an
electron beam could do a similar line by line scan
of an image. And there are different accounts of whether
that was a field of potatoes or beats, but you know,
it was a field with straight lines was being plowed
on the farm. So, as the story goes, his teacher
(05:50):
did not quite go he was talking about, and his
fellow students didn't either. I'm imagining the teacher kind of
patting him on the head and going that's nice there. Well,
like every say, except he was fifteen. Well, and Tolman
hung onto that sketch. Yeah, there was something about it
that he thought like, this is interesting enough that I'm
gonna keep it. Maybe this is a real thing in
(06:10):
not space medic Yeah. So after high school, Farnsworth attended
Brigham Young University starting in nineteen but unfortunately, his education
hit an early roadblock when his father died in nineteen
twenty four. He had to drop out of school so
that he could help work and support the family, and
this really put an end to his formal education, but
(06:33):
his scientific work didn't stop there. He kept learning on
his own, tankering and experimenting. One of the many self
taught people that we've talked about in the podcast. Yeah,
we do a lot of our big names in the
science history and invention are really self taught, which I
think is an interesting through line. And in nine six
(06:54):
Filo married Elma pim Gardner, and they would eventually have
four children together. We won't go into depths on their kids,
but I wanted to make a note that same year
he was able to get enough cash together to move
into full time research. He had been working for two
professional fundraisers. They were George Everson and Leslie Garrel in
(07:15):
southern California in their bulk mailing business. After Farnsworth told
his bosses about his concept for an electronic television, the
pair formed this venture partnership with him as Everson, Farnsworth
and Garrel. Additional investment came from the Cracker Bank under
President William W. Crocker, and a new group, Crocker Research Laboratories,
(07:38):
was formed. Crocker and yet another investor, Roy and Bishop,
were based in San Francisco, and consequently they wanted Farnsworth
to move closer to where they were, So with all
of this funding and place, Farnsworth set up a lab
at two O two Green Street, which is at the
bottom of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, with his wife
Pim and her brother Cliff Gardener as his assistants. In
(08:03):
ninety seven, in January, Firensworth filed for his first patents
for his television system, and later that year, on September seven,
he unveiled his electronic television prototype, and it was the
first of its kind. It featured a video camera tube,
which he also called an image dissector. It was essentially
(08:24):
the same thing he had sketched as a teenager and
shown to his slightly befelled chemistry teacher. Yeah, that's going
to be important later as well. Uh. The first image
that he transmitted was really just a blurry line. But
working with his research team, because he hired more people
on and they were dubbed the Lab Gang, he was
(08:45):
able to pretty quickly advance the technology and he was
sending progressively more complex shapes, and within a few years
he actually sent signals to a location that was eight
blocks away at the Merchant's Exchange building. During all of
this time of really apid development, they actually had an
enormous setback. In late nine the lab and its assortment
(09:06):
of chemicals and electrical components caught fire and they had
to completely rebuild it from scratch. So basically they've been
rolling along and they had to start completely over and
completely rebuild. So think about how much faster it would
have gone if they hadn't had this big chunk of
time where they had starting completely over. On September three,
(09:28):
which is just a little before that fire happened, the
San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about Farnsworth Television, and
the article described how Farnsworth all electronic approach was a
total game changer. So to quote, all television systems now
in use employ a revolving disc two feet in diameter
to break up or scan the image. A similar disc
(09:49):
is at the receiving end, and the two discs must
revolve at precisely the same instant and it precisely the
same speed or blurred vision results. Farnsworth system employs no
moving parts whatsoever. Instead of moving the machine, he buries
the electric current that plays over the image and thus
gets the necessary scanning. The system is thus simple in
(10:10):
the extreme, and one of the major mechanical obstacles to
the perfection of television is thereby removed. This article is
actually pretty detailed. It mentions the frame rate, which is
twenty pictures per second, and the resolution, which is eight
thousand elements or pinpoints of light for each picture. The
screen he was using to demonstrate in a mirror one
(10:33):
point to five inches square. It is tiny. As we
mentioned earlier, the warehouse their team viewers have a sense
of what that looks like. In the words of the chronicle,
it is a queer looking little image in bluish light, now,
one that frequently smudges and blurs, but the basic principle
is achieved and perfection is now a matter of engineering.
(10:55):
And at the time, Farms was actually told the paper
that he envisioned that his tell vision receiver could actually
be attached to a radio set, and he thought it
was gonna be sold at retail for about a hundred dollars,
which is a lot of money at the time. But uh,
it's just interesting that he had this whole plan of
(11:16):
how it was going to become a business. So while
he was just a privately funded inventor and researcher, Radio
Corporation of America also known as r c A, was
a giant. You couldn't legally build a radio in the
United States without an r c A license. David Sarnoff,
who was the acting president of our c A at
(11:37):
the time, had established this business model of finding scientists
and engineers, hiring them and buying out their patent rights
to grow our CIA's legal holdings. And Sarnoff was really
quick to protect his company's stake in the home entertainment
market when he got wind of Farnsworth's new television on
November eighteenth, UH an essay that was actually written by
(12:00):
or Off appeared in the New York Times and it
was entitled Forging an Electric Eye to scan the World,
and it assured readers that Farnsworth Television was nowhere near
ready for the home market, and that TVs would first
be available to consumers from our c A and that
they were going to beat Farnsworth to the market. This
reminds me of the competing advertisements in our episode about
(12:21):
the history of the setting machine. A lot of this
reminds me of it once we get into the r
c A portion of it. This is not really a
real thing, ours a real thing. A month later, another
New York Times piece was published entitled leaders to spell
Television Fears, and this one was not written by Sarnoff,
but he was the main source for the article. This
(12:43):
one encouraged readers to keep buying radios, particularly for the holidays,
instead of waiting for television. Sarnoff even hired another inventor,
Vladimir's work In from the research team at Westinghouse to
do a little bit of digging for him. He was
paper hired to head up UH some labs, but it
(13:04):
was clear that Sarnoff also wanted him to kind of
try to figure out what the heck Farnsworth was actually
up to and working. Actually visited farnsworth San Francisco Lab
in and when he returned from his mission, he attempted
to reverse engineer the technology he had seen while he
was visiting Farnsworth. And there are some versions of this
(13:25):
story that say that was working actually telegraphed design and
Schamata information ahead to our Cia so that the lab
could get to work on it, and by the time
he got back from visiting Farnsworth in San Francisco, the
first model was there, but those seemed to be a
little bit Paul Taylish, that's a that would be a
(13:46):
very quick build of things for people that did not
have the first hand account of it for three D printers.
So before you ask why in the world would Farnsworth
let a competitor just come visit his lab, pretty sure
that he did not know that that's what's working was Yeah,
there are accounts at the time to indicate that he
(14:07):
thought it's working. Was still under the Westinghouse Umbrella, and
Westinghouse had shown some interest in Farnsworth's work, and so
the financial backers of the Green Street Lab had been
encouraging Farnsworth to sell his idea to Westinghouse or at
least licensed the rights to them. So I remember this
was all going on right after the stock market crash,
(14:28):
and while Farnsworth was an idealist then wanted to tinker
and not think a whole lot about money. The people
who were paying for his work, we're pretty financially nervous
at this point. Yeah, and some accounts will say that
it was clear that working was still working for our
ci A and not Westinghouse. Um, But really the crux
(14:48):
of the matter was that Farnsworth thought this was like
a Oh, I'm gonna come and visit and hang out
and see what licensing options we might be able to
work out. Not and I'm coming to steal all of
your ideas and technology trip right, So but when's Workin's
attempts to recreate farnsworth device didn't work out. They completely
fell flat. He wasn't able to deliver Sarnoff actually decided
(15:09):
that he was going to go visit Green Street himself,
and he did so in spring of ninety one. And
there's some hint that he kind of thought he was
the big businessman that was going to go in strong
arm this foolish farm boy UH. But Farnsworth actually wasn't
there at the lab when Sarnov dropped in unannounced, but
he was allowed to enter. UM staff let him in
(15:30):
and he eventually, after looking around and returning back to
r C headquarters, he made an offer to hire Farnsworth
into the r C family and to buy Farnsworth's company
and his patents. But he made was a pretty low
ball offer, and Farnsworth said no, and this did not
go over well at all. Yeah, and it really was
(15:51):
low ball. Even the investors that have been kind of
urging Farnsworth to look into selling because of the volatility
of the stock market and the economy at the time,
even they are like, that doesn't sound like a fair
offered us UM. So, as with most game changing inventions
that also UH involved corporate intrigue and bruised egos, a
(16:11):
legal battle ensued, backed by r C a's huge legal power.
Vladimir's working claimed that Farnsworth's work violated patents he already
had on a similar invention, and in Zorkian had applied
for a patent for an invention called an iconoscope, which
was an electronic image scanner. So there were similarities and
(16:36):
this was the basis for a decade long war that
our ci A morged again waged against Farnsworth. Although it's
of note that's working never was able to build a
functioning model of his patent at all. He it was
all theoretical. He never was able to make a real
world version of it. You're right, this is really really similar.
(17:00):
It's worth noting that other inventors were also on the
trail of televised imagery. Charles Jenkins came up with a
scanning drum to display moving silhouettes in UR and John
Barrett of Scotland had made mechanical image transmissions using a
transparent rot array in dr. Herbert Ives came up with
(17:21):
a wire harness system for Bell Labs that sent electrical
impulses to electrodes on its viewing screen. Individually, there were
televisions being developed in France, Great Britain and Russia by
a number of different researchers. Yeah, so again, it really
is similar to the sewing machine thing, or everybody knew
this was kind of the next step, and they were
(17:43):
all kind of working towards creating it, but some different approaches.
But even with all of this work, and as was
mentioned in the newspaper article about him, like they talked
about existing televisions too, So all of this work was
going on. Uh uh. And z Workin's patent had happened
before farnsworth TV, but he was the first one to
(18:04):
actually produce an electronic TV based on his research and designs.
So now is when we bring back that high school
chemistry teacher. Yeah, so the one that kept filers drawing.
Those turned out to be really important when it came
to all the legal proceedings because he was able to
testify that Farnsworth had diagrammed and described this television idea
(18:28):
way back in the drawing itself, which he had hung onto.
Was also a huge moon to Farnsworth's case, and while
the case was dragging on, Farnsworth was still working in
one he started the Philco Radio Corporation's television department. In
an exchange for additional lab funding for his own research,
(18:48):
Farnsworth had to move his family and his team to Philadelphia.
That move was not really popular with his wife, Pim.
She really loved San Francisco and she often spoke uh
when you know, asked about their lives or giving interviews
about how you know, the West was really where their
heart was. But in nineteen thirty three, so just a
couple of years later, Farnsworth left Philco and continued his
(19:11):
work solo because Philko had decided that the television division
did not really fit in their corporate vision any longer.
So after moving his entire family kind of against their will,
it turned out that wasn't going to work out so well.
So irritating the U S. Patent Office found in Farnsworth's favor,
(19:31):
Our c A appealed, but that same verdict came down
again and again. As you can imagine, there's some uh
bruised he goes at play even after you know this
element of the legal proceedings was done. Uh. In eight
Farnsworth founded the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation. He was
really ready to launch into the brave new world of
(19:54):
consumer television and broadcast reception. But as an independent inventor,
which was just a creature that was basically extinct in
this environment of explosive growth of corporate labs in the
thirties and forties, Barnsworth couldn't really stand up to the
pr machine that our c A was able to crank
out at the world's fair r c A sponsored a
(20:17):
television pavilion, and Starnoff brokered a deal for the radio
and television rights to air the opening ceremony. But I
feel like we should mention prior to being named acting
president of our CIA, Starnoff had actually founded NBC Radio Network,
which was owned by our CIA, So it kind of
sets the stage of like broadcast rights and bitter battles
(20:39):
really being at the heart of network television. Basically from
day one, think it was already about who had the
rights to do what, and kind of some you know,
backbiting and really aggressive business practices. So our CIA had
been working on television technology throughout these whole legal proceedings,
and it was selling televisions and department stores leading up
(21:00):
to this event, and it announced just prior to the
fair opening that NBC was starting a regular broadcast schedule.
And at this point Farnsworth realized he was outgunned. I
think I read a m A statistic that right out
of the gate r c A had an easy eight
or greater market share, and there was just no way
(21:20):
that Farnsworth was going to be able to keep up.
So he actually sold our CI A a non exclusive license.
At that point for one million dollars. After the r
c A deal, Farnsworth was really exhausted and he had
a nervous breakdown that resulted in him being hospitalized. He
really struggled with depression and would continue to struggle with
(21:41):
it for the rest of his life. And meanwhile, World
War two put television in a time out because all
manufacture of non military electronics was banned by the U.
S Government for the duration of the war. When the
war ended and the Farnsworth Corporation was making its home
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and it started to produce television sets.
(22:04):
But our CIA had the resources to launch a much
more successful manufacturing operation, Farnsworth just couldn't keep his company afloat.
It was eventually purchased by International Telephone and Telegraph Company,
and under I T and T, Farnsworth continued his research
into television as well as nuclear fusion. The television division
(22:24):
was shut down before very long though, yeah so had uh.
At that point, Farnsworth's work in television had basically been
shut out a little bit by big business. You know,
he had battled our Cia, and while he tried to
still kind of struggle with a little small part of
the market, it wasn't gonna work out, and so when
he sold his company, thinking he was going to bolster
(22:44):
his his television work, they were like, no, we don't
really want to be in the TV business after all. So, uh,
he was, you know, shut out of television at that point.
But he kept on inventing, and he certainly kept on
studying science. In nineteen fifty one, he was awarded an
honorary doctorate of Science by the Indiana Institute of Technology. Yeah,
(23:07):
which was his first degree since he did not ever
finish college. Uh. In nineteen fifty seven, he started the
Farnsworth Research Corporation as its president and director of Research.
In nineteen sixty seven, he moved back to Utah and
became head of a fusion lab at Brigham Young University,
and just a year later that lab actually changed names
(23:28):
to Filo Key Farnsworth and Associates and it moved to
Salt Lake City, but within two years funds had dried
up for the lab. In nineteen sixty eight, he was
awarded his second honorary doctorate, this time from Brigham Young University,
and he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of
Fame nineteen seventy really marked the beginning of the end
(23:52):
for Farnsworth. Uh. As we mentioned, the lab was running
out of money and he was forced to close it
due to the lack of funds. And at that point
the depression that he had really been battling for decades,
you know, it had really started in the UH in
the thirties, going through all of that, battling with our
(24:12):
c A and patent suits and then having to deal
with the war offsetting their efforts. The depression just kind
of one out at that point, and he started drinking
and drinking heavily, and it really became a habitual drinking
problem in the last few months of his life. He
died of pneumonia on March eleventh, ninety one, in Salt
(24:32):
Lake City. When he died, the televisions that were being
made for consumer markets used components that were included in
about a hundred of his patents. Although he really didn't
have any wealth to speak of. On the other hand,
Sarnoff died the same year, but very wealthy, extremely wealthy.
(24:53):
So what would I have to say about that? He
didn't get take it with him. That's true. Uh, yeah,
I mean it is kind of one of those things
where Farnsworth in so many ways was in the right,
but it really did him no good. Even though he
won the patent lawsuit, and even though he made that
big settlement with our c A, that money went towards
funding a lab that was really struggling and didn't didn't
(25:14):
turn out so well in terms of um his his
end of life quality. But after his passing, his wife
Pim really worked tirelessly to try to establish her husband's
image in a positive way and ensure that he was
recognized as the visionary that he really was. And Farnsworth
really gave him a great deal of credit throughout his
(25:36):
life for his most famous work, and he would often
say that my wife and I started television and they
had worked together. Pim had worked alongside her husband throughout
his life in his various labs, and as he often
became really engaged with his work, he would forget to eat,
he would neglect to think about his health. He apparently
had this weird habit where he was in insomniac, so
(25:56):
at night he would go to bed and kind of
give himself a problem to solve, knowing that he would
wake up and hoping that he would be working through
it in that sort of half sleep state, like he
really kind of was not doing things that were great
in terms of like his quality of health as he
went on. Uh. But Pam was always the constant that
kind of kept their lives in order, despite his sort
(26:18):
of odd behaviors and his tendency to get really over
absorbed into his work. In nine eight one, his two
oh two Green Street address in San Francisco, which was
home to the lab where the first televised image was projected,
was given a historical marker. There's also a memorial statue
of Farnsworth at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco.
(26:40):
In the state of Utah gave the National Statuary Hall
Collection in Washington, d C. A statue of Farnsworth by
artist James r Avati, which had the inscription father of Television. Yeah,
I love uh Inn. He was inducted into the San
Francisco Hall of Fame, and in he was inducted into
(27:02):
the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
And in his life he had held at least a
hundred sixty patents, and he contributed to the development of
many other things which we are actually relevant to uh,
you know, other recent podcasts we've been working on. He worked.
Some of his work contributed to the development of radar
(27:23):
infra red electron microscopes, baby incubators. Uh So when you
go to like the I See You or the newborn
I cu the nick you, those incubators are in part
due to the work that Farnsworth did and even astronomical telescopes.
And Pim died in two thousand six, but their kids
have continued this tradition of kind of keeping his image
(27:45):
alive and well, uh, there was also uh. In two
thou four, they announced a screenplay. New Line Cinema had
optioned the screenplay from Aaron Sorkin about the life of Farnsworth,
which never came to fruition, and in two thousand five
Sorkin adapted it to the stage and it's been produced
a couple of times, and maybe we'll eventually go full
(28:06):
circle and become a film again. But if it ever does,
I feel like I should pre warn people that it's
it's not historically accurate, like that was not the intent
for change for dramatic effects there musical, I feel like
there's a musical. I hope not. There might be I have.
We're in the opposite You're like, I hope not because singing,
(28:28):
and I'm like, I hope so because the singing. Yeah,
I'm not the biggest fan of musicals. There's nothing wrong
with them. It's my personal I don't like to watch
people sing. I don't like to look in their mouths thing.
I know. That's my weird neurotic biz. I want fabulousness
about Filo Farnsworth with a big chorus line and lots
of kicking. That doesn't seem right for him though. He
just wanted to quietly work in the lab. Why That's
(28:50):
why people can all do the kicking and the big
boisterous show numbers, whereas he could have quiet little songs
in his lab. Up. But yeah, that's uh Farnsworth. It's
interesting because in some circles when you say pilot Farnsworth,
people go, oh, I love his story, and other people
just get a glazy look like he's he's kind of
(29:12):
reached through history and hit certain people, and a lot
of people have become very interested in his story, But
for many others, they have no idea he even existed,
let alone lead to the box that uh inhabits our
lives all the time, although modern day TV tech is
very different. But I'm hoping that all the Warehouse thirteen
(29:34):
fans who've been writing us and asking us to talk
about Paracelsis can take some temporary solace in this episode.
About Farnsworth, I love him. I have a real soft
spot for him, partially because I love television and entertainment,
and partially because you know, he's just that guy who
wants to work on projects and didn't really have business
(29:57):
acumen and just was a great thing gear that kind
of was an underdog. I love him, all right. Do
you also have some listener mail? I do. I have
two pieces. They are both related to our Crystal Palace podcast.
Uh and I mentioned them because they both mentioned something
that we didn't touch on. And the first one is
from our listener Laura, and she says, high, ladies, I
(30:19):
love it when you do British podcasts. I'm a britt
living in South Korea and it's lovely to hear about
things from home. I wonder why you left out the
Crystal Palace Football Club, which is soccer? Do you guys?
She says in your Crystal Palace podcast, it's a really
interesting part of the history of the place and something
that keeps the name of the building alive today. If
you talk about Crystal Palace anywhere in Britain, I bet
(30:39):
that it's the football club people will associate with it
rather than the original building. Uh. And I know that
the park did host the football club and championship games
there for two decades, I think, but I kind of
left it out because it seems like a big, huge
thing on its own and in terms of the actual building, uh,
(31:01):
not so much. But I probably should have mentioned it
at some point. Now. We had the same basic response
to both of these emails, which was I'm guessing which
one you're reading next, actually, which is that that we
were mostly talking about the history of the building and
there are so many other things that went on in
the park and the grounds that that would be eighteen
other episodes. Yeah, I mean, the football club is big,
(31:24):
and I'll admit my knowledge of football in Great Britain
is not so vast. My knowledge of football anywhere is
is non existent. Any football, whether it's football or soccer,
that would be a good podcast to do in the future. Interesting, uh,
sporting things that are kind of outside our regular knowledge.
And our second one comes from our listener Richard, and
(31:46):
he says, I can't thank you enough for the Crystal
Palace podcast. It brought back warm memories of when I
was a child going for my swimming lessons at the
neighboring Olympic pool. I remember visiting the Dinosaur Park and
seeing the Crystal Palace site every Saturday more, even though
it was just grass and some decorative stone fencing and steps.
I even remember the train station architecture was a poor
(32:07):
representation on the outside of the great glass structure. I
also remember walking past the huge concrete head of Joseph Paxton,
which is on display with a pack to honor the
site's history, and becoming very scared along with my sister.
Paxton's concrete head was pretty daunting when you're only half
its size. I have a lot of affiliation with Crystal Palace.
My grandfather was a member of the football club, my
(32:28):
father was a steward in the seventies, and even though
I live in Melbourne, Australia, I still have fond memories
of growing up with this historic area so cool. I
totally guessed wrongly which other crystal I thought, yeah, we
got another one. That was you all didn't discuss, and
I don't remember what it was, but there were yet
so many other things that went on in the building
(32:50):
and in the grounds, and oh yeah, it was the
the taxidermy at the expo. R didn't mentioned because that
pertained to you. An older podcast about Walter Potter, who
first got inspired into Texted or Me just before I
joined the podcast after seeing an exhibit at the Great Expo,
and I didn't go into text or Me either, even
though I love it. But that was one of those
(33:10):
they're winding paths that you choose not to walk down
because you know you will get wildly derailed and maybe
not stay on topic. Well, and you and I have
both had some some research rabbit holes of late. Yes,
it's easy to do, you know, you find one interesting thing.
What often happens to me is I'll be researching a
topic and I find one other person or item that's mentioned,
(33:31):
and then I'm like, I really want to look that up,
but make sure I'm understanding their place in this bigger story.
And then something cool there leads me way down a
path that is no longer really relevant, but I just
want to read some more about it. Anyway, it happened uh.
If you would like to write us, you can do
so at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. If you
(33:52):
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at mist in history or on Facebook dot com slash
History class stuff. And you can visit us on tom
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you can check out what we've been penning on Pinterest.
If you want to learn a little bit more about
what we talked about today, you can go to our
website and actually type in the words Barnsworth and one
(34:13):
of the articles you will see is the top ten
technological Innovations in TV Broadcasting, and one of those items
is about Farnsworth's work with a great picture of him. Uh.
And if you would like to learn almost anything else
that your mind can think about, you can do that
at our website, which is a house to works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics
(34:36):
because it has to Works dot com. Audible dot com
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(34:56):
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and we've had some scientist episodes
lately and we're going to have another. YEP. If any
(00:21):
of our listeners watch Futurama, you will recognize the name Farnsworth.
But unless you listen to the creator's commentary tracks on
the show DVD releases, or you are a fan of
television history, you might not know that the crotchety mad
scientist on the show is actually named for a real
scientists of the twentieth century who was a Utah farm
(00:41):
boy that actually kind of changed the way humans see
the world. You know, who might recognize the name and
the connection. Who people who watch Warehouse their teen Oh yeah,
which I don't watch. I have that point of they
have these Farnsworth devices that are totally based on this technology,
and there is even it's a little well at this
point's got some age on. It hasn't been updated in
(01:02):
a while. Free iOS app that makes sure iPhone into
a Farnsworth device. Interesting, and the scientists were talking about
today is Filo T. Farnsworth, And he was interested in
science almost from birth. He was inventing things as early
as grade school. But his real claim to fame in
(01:23):
terms of technology is uh in television. He also has
become something of an icon representing the little guy because
he went up against a big business in a patent
lawsuit and kind of a David versus Goliath situation. Yeah,
which ends both happily and sadly. Yeah, it does. It
(01:44):
doesn't have quite as satisfying and ending as the David
and Goliath story. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little later.
He will. He's a fascinating, fascinating and so insightful at
such an early age that it kind of blows my mind. Uh.
And I also feel compelled to mention right out of
the gate that a lot of the history with him
(02:06):
is all based on verbal accounts that various people have given,
so there's some variation, like sometimes even his age will change,
you know, in two different versions of the story, even
though they're close and will account for most of those.
But it would really becombersome to be like, well, this
person said he was, you know, it was this year.
This person said it was this year. If they're close,
(02:29):
I don't always like break out and go, No, this
was two different accounts that they were assume there might
be some age range changes by you know, we're dealing
with an oral account, yes, since all oral history coming
from multiple people for much of the earlier part. So
he was born, we know, in Utah in August of
(02:50):
nineteen o six. He was born in August nineteen His
name was Philo Taylor Farnsworth and uh. He was born
in a log cabin that was actually built by his grandfather,
who was Mormon pioneer. So he was part of a
Utah family that had really come over with the Mormon
tradition as they came to kind of settle the area.
(03:11):
When he was twelve, the family moved to Franklin, Idaho,
and his first sort of scientific triumph happened when he
was thirteen. He entered a National Science contest which was
sponsored by Science and Invention magazine, and he won it.
And his idea was a tamper proof lock for a
Model T ignition switch. Apparently at the time there really
(03:32):
wasn't like a way to lock a Model T all
the keys were basically the same for the ignition from
car to car to car. So he had figured out
a way to make one key for one car. Somehow
the idea of of a model te theft ring brought
on by non secure ignitions, which is it's really funny
to me. During high school, he converted all of his
(03:56):
family's home appliances to electric power, which is pretty impressive
considering that they had not had electricity in their home
until he was fourteen. Yeah, and he allegedly learned all
of this. Uh. The sort of apocryphal story is that
he found electrical manuals and like technical diagrams in the
(04:18):
house that they had moved into at some point that
the previous owner had left behind, and he just studied
those and learned how electricals worked. As a kid, you know,
I can see an adult doing that, like having kind
of the focus of mine to like break it down.
That's what happens on Orange is the New Black? Is
this what happens? Uh? And then when he was uh
(04:41):
sixteen or thirteen or fourteen or fifteen, depending on who
you talked to. Uh, some accounts say it was nineteen
twenty one. There's actually a television appearance that Farnsworth made
where he says it's ninety two, but we know it's
right around fifteen or sixteen. Uh, he sketched out a
concept for a vacuum tube and he showed it to
his high school chemistry. Chemistry teacher, Justin Tollman and farms
(05:04):
Worth had detailed this idea that by controlling the speed
and direction of electrons, he could turn electricity into pictures
using the vacuum tube. The idea was that the tube
would shoot electrons toward a screen and project an image.
And this was all theoretical. He hadn't, of course, been
able to test any of this. He was just thinking
through how he thought it would work. He had kind
of made it up in his head and drawn it. Yeah,
(05:27):
And according to legend, he got the idea from the
parallel plowing rows on the family farm, thinking that an
electron beam could do a similar line by line scan
of an image. And there are different accounts of whether
that was a field of potatoes or beats, but you know,
it was a field with straight lines was being plowed
on the farm. So, as the story goes, his teacher
(05:50):
did not quite go he was talking about, and his
fellow students didn't either. I'm imagining the teacher kind of
patting him on the head and going that's nice there. Well,
like every say, except he was fifteen. Well, and Tolman
hung onto that sketch. Yeah, there was something about it
that he thought like, this is interesting enough that I'm
gonna keep it. Maybe this is a real thing in
(06:10):
not space medic Yeah. So after high school, Farnsworth attended
Brigham Young University starting in nineteen but unfortunately, his education
hit an early roadblock when his father died in nineteen
twenty four. He had to drop out of school so
that he could help work and support the family, and
this really put an end to his formal education, but
(06:33):
his scientific work didn't stop there. He kept learning on
his own, tankering and experimenting. One of the many self
taught people that we've talked about in the podcast. Yeah,
we do a lot of our big names in the
science history and invention are really self taught, which I
think is an interesting through line. And in nine six
(06:54):
Filo married Elma pim Gardner, and they would eventually have
four children together. We won't go into depths on their kids,
but I wanted to make a note that same year
he was able to get enough cash together to move
into full time research. He had been working for two
professional fundraisers. They were George Everson and Leslie Garrel in
(07:15):
southern California in their bulk mailing business. After Farnsworth told
his bosses about his concept for an electronic television, the
pair formed this venture partnership with him as Everson, Farnsworth
and Garrel. Additional investment came from the Cracker Bank under
President William W. Crocker, and a new group, Crocker Research Laboratories,
(07:38):
was formed. Crocker and yet another investor, Roy and Bishop,
were based in San Francisco, and consequently they wanted Farnsworth
to move closer to where they were, So with all
of this funding and place, Farnsworth set up a lab
at two O two Green Street, which is at the
bottom of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, with his wife
Pim and her brother Cliff Gardener as his assistants. In
(08:03):
ninety seven, in January, Firensworth filed for his first patents
for his television system, and later that year, on September seven,
he unveiled his electronic television prototype, and it was the
first of its kind. It featured a video camera tube,
which he also called an image dissector. It was essentially
(08:24):
the same thing he had sketched as a teenager and
shown to his slightly befelled chemistry teacher. Yeah, that's going
to be important later as well. Uh. The first image
that he transmitted was really just a blurry line. But
working with his research team, because he hired more people
on and they were dubbed the Lab Gang, he was
(08:45):
able to pretty quickly advance the technology and he was
sending progressively more complex shapes, and within a few years
he actually sent signals to a location that was eight
blocks away at the Merchant's Exchange building. During all of
this time of really apid development, they actually had an
enormous setback. In late nine the lab and its assortment
(09:06):
of chemicals and electrical components caught fire and they had
to completely rebuild it from scratch. So basically they've been
rolling along and they had to start completely over and
completely rebuild. So think about how much faster it would
have gone if they hadn't had this big chunk of
time where they had starting completely over. On September three,
(09:28):
which is just a little before that fire happened, the
San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about Farnsworth Television, and
the article described how Farnsworth all electronic approach was a
total game changer. So to quote, all television systems now
in use employ a revolving disc two feet in diameter
to break up or scan the image. A similar disc
(09:49):
is at the receiving end, and the two discs must
revolve at precisely the same instant and it precisely the
same speed or blurred vision results. Farnsworth system employs no
moving parts whatsoever. Instead of moving the machine, he buries
the electric current that plays over the image and thus
gets the necessary scanning. The system is thus simple in
(10:10):
the extreme, and one of the major mechanical obstacles to
the perfection of television is thereby removed. This article is
actually pretty detailed. It mentions the frame rate, which is
twenty pictures per second, and the resolution, which is eight
thousand elements or pinpoints of light for each picture. The
screen he was using to demonstrate in a mirror one
(10:33):
point to five inches square. It is tiny. As we
mentioned earlier, the warehouse their team viewers have a sense
of what that looks like. In the words of the chronicle,
it is a queer looking little image in bluish light, now,
one that frequently smudges and blurs, but the basic principle
is achieved and perfection is now a matter of engineering.
(10:55):
And at the time, Farms was actually told the paper
that he envisioned that his tell vision receiver could actually
be attached to a radio set, and he thought it
was gonna be sold at retail for about a hundred dollars,
which is a lot of money at the time. But uh,
it's just interesting that he had this whole plan of
(11:16):
how it was going to become a business. So while
he was just a privately funded inventor and researcher, Radio
Corporation of America also known as r c A, was
a giant. You couldn't legally build a radio in the
United States without an r c A license. David Sarnoff,
who was the acting president of our c A at
(11:37):
the time, had established this business model of finding scientists
and engineers, hiring them and buying out their patent rights
to grow our CIA's legal holdings. And Sarnoff was really
quick to protect his company's stake in the home entertainment
market when he got wind of Farnsworth's new television on
November eighteenth, UH an essay that was actually written by
(12:00):
or Off appeared in the New York Times and it
was entitled Forging an Electric Eye to scan the World,
and it assured readers that Farnsworth Television was nowhere near
ready for the home market, and that TVs would first
be available to consumers from our c A and that
they were going to beat Farnsworth to the market. This
reminds me of the competing advertisements in our episode about
(12:21):
the history of the setting machine. A lot of this
reminds me of it once we get into the r
c A portion of it. This is not really a
real thing, ours a real thing. A month later, another
New York Times piece was published entitled leaders to spell
Television Fears, and this one was not written by Sarnoff,
but he was the main source for the article. This
(12:43):
one encouraged readers to keep buying radios, particularly for the holidays,
instead of waiting for television. Sarnoff even hired another inventor,
Vladimir's work In from the research team at Westinghouse to
do a little bit of digging for him. He was
paper hired to head up UH some labs, but it
(13:04):
was clear that Sarnoff also wanted him to kind of
try to figure out what the heck Farnsworth was actually
up to and working. Actually visited farnsworth San Francisco Lab
in and when he returned from his mission, he attempted
to reverse engineer the technology he had seen while he
was visiting Farnsworth. And there are some versions of this
(13:25):
story that say that was working actually telegraphed design and
Schamata information ahead to our Cia so that the lab
could get to work on it, and by the time
he got back from visiting Farnsworth in San Francisco, the
first model was there, but those seemed to be a
little bit Paul Taylish, that's a that would be a
(13:46):
very quick build of things for people that did not
have the first hand account of it for three D printers.
So before you ask why in the world would Farnsworth
let a competitor just come visit his lab, pretty sure
that he did not know that that's what's working was Yeah,
there are accounts at the time to indicate that he
(14:07):
thought it's working. Was still under the Westinghouse Umbrella, and
Westinghouse had shown some interest in Farnsworth's work, and so
the financial backers of the Green Street Lab had been
encouraging Farnsworth to sell his idea to Westinghouse or at
least licensed the rights to them. So I remember this
was all going on right after the stock market crash,
(14:28):
and while Farnsworth was an idealist then wanted to tinker
and not think a whole lot about money. The people
who were paying for his work, we're pretty financially nervous
at this point. Yeah, and some accounts will say that
it was clear that working was still working for our
ci A and not Westinghouse. Um, But really the crux
(14:48):
of the matter was that Farnsworth thought this was like
a Oh, I'm gonna come and visit and hang out
and see what licensing options we might be able to
work out. Not and I'm coming to steal all of
your ideas and technology trip right, So but when's Workin's
attempts to recreate farnsworth device didn't work out. They completely
fell flat. He wasn't able to deliver Sarnoff actually decided
(15:09):
that he was going to go visit Green Street himself,
and he did so in spring of ninety one. And
there's some hint that he kind of thought he was
the big businessman that was going to go in strong
arm this foolish farm boy UH. But Farnsworth actually wasn't
there at the lab when Sarnov dropped in unannounced, but
he was allowed to enter. UM staff let him in
(15:30):
and he eventually, after looking around and returning back to
r C headquarters, he made an offer to hire Farnsworth
into the r C family and to buy Farnsworth's company
and his patents. But he made was a pretty low
ball offer, and Farnsworth said no, and this did not
go over well at all. Yeah, and it really was
(15:51):
low ball. Even the investors that have been kind of
urging Farnsworth to look into selling because of the volatility
of the stock market and the economy at the time,
even they are like, that doesn't sound like a fair
offered us UM. So, as with most game changing inventions
that also UH involved corporate intrigue and bruised egos, a
(16:11):
legal battle ensued, backed by r C a's huge legal power.
Vladimir's working claimed that Farnsworth's work violated patents he already
had on a similar invention, and in Zorkian had applied
for a patent for an invention called an iconoscope, which
was an electronic image scanner. So there were similarities and
(16:36):
this was the basis for a decade long war that
our ci A morged again waged against Farnsworth. Although it's
of note that's working never was able to build a
functioning model of his patent at all. He it was
all theoretical. He never was able to make a real
world version of it. You're right, this is really really similar.
(17:00):
It's worth noting that other inventors were also on the
trail of televised imagery. Charles Jenkins came up with a
scanning drum to display moving silhouettes in UR and John
Barrett of Scotland had made mechanical image transmissions using a
transparent rot array in dr. Herbert Ives came up with
(17:21):
a wire harness system for Bell Labs that sent electrical
impulses to electrodes on its viewing screen. Individually, there were
televisions being developed in France, Great Britain and Russia by
a number of different researchers. Yeah, so again, it really
is similar to the sewing machine thing, or everybody knew
this was kind of the next step, and they were
(17:43):
all kind of working towards creating it, but some different approaches.
But even with all of this work, and as was
mentioned in the newspaper article about him, like they talked
about existing televisions too, So all of this work was
going on. Uh uh. And z Workin's patent had happened
before farnsworth TV, but he was the first one to
(18:04):
actually produce an electronic TV based on his research and designs.
So now is when we bring back that high school
chemistry teacher. Yeah, so the one that kept filers drawing.
Those turned out to be really important when it came
to all the legal proceedings because he was able to
testify that Farnsworth had diagrammed and described this television idea
(18:28):
way back in the drawing itself, which he had hung onto.
Was also a huge moon to Farnsworth's case, and while
the case was dragging on, Farnsworth was still working in
one he started the Philco Radio Corporation's television department. In
an exchange for additional lab funding for his own research,
(18:48):
Farnsworth had to move his family and his team to Philadelphia.
That move was not really popular with his wife, Pim.
She really loved San Francisco and she often spoke uh
when you know, asked about their lives or giving interviews
about how you know, the West was really where their
heart was. But in nineteen thirty three, so just a
couple of years later, Farnsworth left Philco and continued his
(19:11):
work solo because Philko had decided that the television division
did not really fit in their corporate vision any longer.
So after moving his entire family kind of against their will,
it turned out that wasn't going to work out so well.
So irritating the U S. Patent Office found in Farnsworth's favor,
(19:31):
Our c A appealed, but that same verdict came down
again and again. As you can imagine, there's some uh
bruised he goes at play even after you know this
element of the legal proceedings was done. Uh. In eight
Farnsworth founded the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation. He was
really ready to launch into the brave new world of
(19:54):
consumer television and broadcast reception. But as an independent inventor,
which was just a creature that was basically extinct in
this environment of explosive growth of corporate labs in the
thirties and forties, Barnsworth couldn't really stand up to the
pr machine that our c A was able to crank
out at the world's fair r c A sponsored a
(20:17):
television pavilion, and Starnoff brokered a deal for the radio
and television rights to air the opening ceremony. But I
feel like we should mention prior to being named acting
president of our CIA, Starnoff had actually founded NBC Radio Network,
which was owned by our CIA, So it kind of
sets the stage of like broadcast rights and bitter battles
(20:39):
really being at the heart of network television. Basically from
day one, think it was already about who had the
rights to do what, and kind of some you know,
backbiting and really aggressive business practices. So our CIA had
been working on television technology throughout these whole legal proceedings,
and it was selling televisions and department stores leading up
(21:00):
to this event, and it announced just prior to the
fair opening that NBC was starting a regular broadcast schedule.
And at this point Farnsworth realized he was outgunned. I
think I read a m A statistic that right out
of the gate r c A had an easy eight
or greater market share, and there was just no way
(21:20):
that Farnsworth was going to be able to keep up.
So he actually sold our CI A a non exclusive license.
At that point for one million dollars. After the r
c A deal, Farnsworth was really exhausted and he had
a nervous breakdown that resulted in him being hospitalized. He
really struggled with depression and would continue to struggle with
(21:41):
it for the rest of his life. And meanwhile, World
War two put television in a time out because all
manufacture of non military electronics was banned by the U.
S Government for the duration of the war. When the
war ended and the Farnsworth Corporation was making its home
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and it started to produce television sets.
(22:04):
But our CIA had the resources to launch a much
more successful manufacturing operation, Farnsworth just couldn't keep his company afloat.
It was eventually purchased by International Telephone and Telegraph Company,
and under I T and T, Farnsworth continued his research
into television as well as nuclear fusion. The television division
(22:24):
was shut down before very long though, yeah so had uh.
At that point, Farnsworth's work in television had basically been
shut out a little bit by big business. You know,
he had battled our Cia, and while he tried to
still kind of struggle with a little small part of
the market, it wasn't gonna work out, and so when
he sold his company, thinking he was going to bolster
(22:44):
his his television work, they were like, no, we don't
really want to be in the TV business after all. So, uh,
he was, you know, shut out of television at that point.
But he kept on inventing, and he certainly kept on
studying science. In nineteen fifty one, he was awarded an
honorary doctorate of Science by the Indiana Institute of Technology. Yeah,
(23:07):
which was his first degree since he did not ever
finish college. Uh. In nineteen fifty seven, he started the
Farnsworth Research Corporation as its president and director of Research.
In nineteen sixty seven, he moved back to Utah and
became head of a fusion lab at Brigham Young University,
and just a year later that lab actually changed names
(23:28):
to Filo Key Farnsworth and Associates and it moved to
Salt Lake City, but within two years funds had dried
up for the lab. In nineteen sixty eight, he was
awarded his second honorary doctorate, this time from Brigham Young University,
and he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of
Fame nineteen seventy really marked the beginning of the end
(23:52):
for Farnsworth. Uh. As we mentioned, the lab was running
out of money and he was forced to close it
due to the lack of funds. And at that point
the depression that he had really been battling for decades,
you know, it had really started in the UH in
the thirties, going through all of that, battling with our
(24:12):
c A and patent suits and then having to deal
with the war offsetting their efforts. The depression just kind
of one out at that point, and he started drinking
and drinking heavily, and it really became a habitual drinking
problem in the last few months of his life. He
died of pneumonia on March eleventh, ninety one, in Salt
(24:32):
Lake City. When he died, the televisions that were being
made for consumer markets used components that were included in
about a hundred of his patents. Although he really didn't
have any wealth to speak of. On the other hand,
Sarnoff died the same year, but very wealthy, extremely wealthy.
(24:53):
So what would I have to say about that? He
didn't get take it with him. That's true. Uh, yeah,
I mean it is kind of one of those things
where Farnsworth in so many ways was in the right,
but it really did him no good. Even though he
won the patent lawsuit, and even though he made that
big settlement with our c A, that money went towards
funding a lab that was really struggling and didn't didn't
(25:14):
turn out so well in terms of um his his
end of life quality. But after his passing, his wife
Pim really worked tirelessly to try to establish her husband's
image in a positive way and ensure that he was
recognized as the visionary that he really was. And Farnsworth
really gave him a great deal of credit throughout his
(25:36):
life for his most famous work, and he would often
say that my wife and I started television and they
had worked together. Pim had worked alongside her husband throughout
his life in his various labs, and as he often
became really engaged with his work, he would forget to eat,
he would neglect to think about his health. He apparently
had this weird habit where he was in insomniac, so
(25:56):
at night he would go to bed and kind of
give himself a problem to solve, knowing that he would
wake up and hoping that he would be working through
it in that sort of half sleep state, like he
really kind of was not doing things that were great
in terms of like his quality of health as he
went on. Uh. But Pam was always the constant that
kind of kept their lives in order, despite his sort
(26:18):
of odd behaviors and his tendency to get really over
absorbed into his work. In nine eight one, his two
oh two Green Street address in San Francisco, which was
home to the lab where the first televised image was projected,
was given a historical marker. There's also a memorial statue
of Farnsworth at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco.
(26:40):
In the state of Utah gave the National Statuary Hall
Collection in Washington, d C. A statue of Farnsworth by
artist James r Avati, which had the inscription father of Television. Yeah,
I love uh Inn. He was inducted into the San
Francisco Hall of Fame, and in he was inducted into
(27:02):
the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
And in his life he had held at least a
hundred sixty patents, and he contributed to the development of
many other things which we are actually relevant to uh,
you know, other recent podcasts we've been working on. He worked.
Some of his work contributed to the development of radar
(27:23):
infra red electron microscopes, baby incubators. Uh So when you
go to like the I See You or the newborn
I cu the nick you, those incubators are in part
due to the work that Farnsworth did and even astronomical telescopes.
And Pim died in two thousand six, but their kids
have continued this tradition of kind of keeping his image
(27:45):
alive and well, uh, there was also uh. In two
thou four, they announced a screenplay. New Line Cinema had
optioned the screenplay from Aaron Sorkin about the life of Farnsworth,
which never came to fruition, and in two thousand five
Sorkin adapted it to the stage and it's been produced
a couple of times, and maybe we'll eventually go full
(28:06):
circle and become a film again. But if it ever does,
I feel like I should pre warn people that it's
it's not historically accurate, like that was not the intent
for change for dramatic effects there musical, I feel like
there's a musical. I hope not. There might be I have.
We're in the opposite You're like, I hope not because singing,
(28:28):
and I'm like, I hope so because the singing. Yeah,
I'm not the biggest fan of musicals. There's nothing wrong
with them. It's my personal I don't like to watch
people sing. I don't like to look in their mouths thing.
I know. That's my weird neurotic biz. I want fabulousness
about Filo Farnsworth with a big chorus line and lots
of kicking. That doesn't seem right for him though. He
just wanted to quietly work in the lab. Why That's
(28:50):
why people can all do the kicking and the big
boisterous show numbers, whereas he could have quiet little songs
in his lab. Up. But yeah, that's uh Farnsworth. It's
interesting because in some circles when you say pilot Farnsworth,
people go, oh, I love his story, and other people
just get a glazy look like he's he's kind of
(29:12):
reached through history and hit certain people, and a lot
of people have become very interested in his story, But
for many others, they have no idea he even existed,
let alone lead to the box that uh inhabits our
lives all the time, although modern day TV tech is
very different. But I'm hoping that all the Warehouse thirteen
(29:34):
fans who've been writing us and asking us to talk
about Paracelsis can take some temporary solace in this episode.
About Farnsworth, I love him. I have a real soft
spot for him, partially because I love television and entertainment,
and partially because you know, he's just that guy who
wants to work on projects and didn't really have business
(29:57):
acumen and just was a great thing gear that kind
of was an underdog. I love him, all right. Do
you also have some listener mail? I do. I have
two pieces. They are both related to our Crystal Palace podcast.
Uh and I mentioned them because they both mentioned something
that we didn't touch on. And the first one is
from our listener Laura, and she says, high, ladies, I
(30:19):
love it when you do British podcasts. I'm a britt
living in South Korea and it's lovely to hear about
things from home. I wonder why you left out the
Crystal Palace Football Club, which is soccer? Do you guys?
She says in your Crystal Palace podcast, it's a really
interesting part of the history of the place and something
that keeps the name of the building alive today. If
you talk about Crystal Palace anywhere in Britain, I bet
(30:39):
that it's the football club people will associate with it
rather than the original building. Uh. And I know that
the park did host the football club and championship games
there for two decades, I think, but I kind of
left it out because it seems like a big, huge
thing on its own and in terms of the actual building, uh,
(31:01):
not so much. But I probably should have mentioned it
at some point. Now. We had the same basic response
to both of these emails, which was I'm guessing which
one you're reading next, actually, which is that that we
were mostly talking about the history of the building and
there are so many other things that went on in
the park and the grounds that that would be eighteen
other episodes. Yeah, I mean, the football club is big,
(31:24):
and I'll admit my knowledge of football in Great Britain
is not so vast. My knowledge of football anywhere is
is non existent. Any football, whether it's football or soccer,
that would be a good podcast to do in the future. Interesting, uh,
sporting things that are kind of outside our regular knowledge.
And our second one comes from our listener Richard, and
(31:46):
he says, I can't thank you enough for the Crystal
Palace podcast. It brought back warm memories of when I
was a child going for my swimming lessons at the
neighboring Olympic pool. I remember visiting the Dinosaur Park and
seeing the Crystal Palace site every Saturday more, even though
it was just grass and some decorative stone fencing and steps.
I even remember the train station architecture was a poor
(32:07):
representation on the outside of the great glass structure. I
also remember walking past the huge concrete head of Joseph Paxton,
which is on display with a pack to honor the
site's history, and becoming very scared along with my sister.
Paxton's concrete head was pretty daunting when you're only half
its size. I have a lot of affiliation with Crystal Palace.
My grandfather was a member of the football club, my
(32:28):
father was a steward in the seventies, and even though
I live in Melbourne, Australia, I still have fond memories
of growing up with this historic area so cool. I
totally guessed wrongly which other crystal I thought, yeah, we
got another one. That was you all didn't discuss, and
I don't remember what it was, but there were yet
so many other things that went on in the building
(32:50):
and in the grounds, and oh yeah, it was the
the taxidermy at the expo. R didn't mentioned because that
pertained to you. An older podcast about Walter Potter, who
first got inspired into Texted or Me just before I
joined the podcast after seeing an exhibit at the Great Expo,
and I didn't go into text or Me either, even
though I love it. But that was one of those
(33:10):
they're winding paths that you choose not to walk down
because you know you will get wildly derailed and maybe
not stay on topic. Well, and you and I have
both had some some research rabbit holes of late. Yes,
it's easy to do, you know, you find one interesting thing.
What often happens to me is I'll be researching a
topic and I find one other person or item that's mentioned,
(33:31):
and then I'm like, I really want to look that up,
but make sure I'm understanding their place in this bigger story.
And then something cool there leads me way down a
path that is no longer really relevant, but I just
want to read some more about it. Anyway, it happened uh.
If you would like to write us, you can do
so at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. If you
(33:52):
would like to connect with us on Twitter, you can
at mist in history or on Facebook dot com slash
History class stuff. And you can visit us on tom
or at missed in history dot tumbler dot com. And
you can check out what we've been penning on Pinterest.
If you want to learn a little bit more about
what we talked about today, you can go to our
website and actually type in the words Barnsworth and one
(34:13):
of the articles you will see is the top ten
technological Innovations in TV Broadcasting, and one of those items
is about Farnsworth's work with a great picture of him. Uh.
And if you would like to learn almost anything else
that your mind can think about, you can do that
at our website, which is a house to works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics
(34:36):
because it has to Works dot com. Audible dot com
is the leading provider of downloadable digital audiobooks and spoken
word entertainment. Audible has more than one thousand titles to
(34:56):
choose from to be download into your iPod or MP
three player. Go to Audible podcast dot com slash history
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when you sign up today.
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