Like many people who are alive, I enjoy watching TV. Far from being the sole source of entertainment at the dinner table, the television has arguably become one of the most important information and communication devices ever invented. Even more revolutionary, recent technological developments in monitor systems have made it possible to see displays in larger-than-life HD, or 3D; touch screens allow you to interact with a virtual environment; some screens are thinner than your pocket book of particle physics.
You all have one man to thank: Philo Farnsworth. This handsome devil was the first man ever to create an electronic television, using the powers of his patented video camera tube. The tube's sole function was to gather optical images on one end, and shoot it out as a series of electrons on the other. These electrons were shot out in a linear pattern, going across the screen of the television row by row, like someone plowing a corn field; the ray coming from the tube would travel so fast that the human eye couldn't pick up the linear pattern of the electrons, and interpreted the whole screen as one large image. This process was called rasterization. The more rows that the tube could fit onto a certain screen area, the sharper the image. Though Farnsworth patented the invention, he didn't really profit off of it; he handed the patents to another big manufacturing company in 1935 to speed up the development of the product.
Now, all of this was happening back in the late 1920's. You might be wondering: why did Marty McFly's 1955 family in Back to the Future act like the TV was something so new? Answer: World War II. TVs couldn't be produced on a massive scale in America due to the financial burdens of wartime; this delayed the real advent of the television until the 50s. Back in Britain, people were already watching the BBC, which started regular programming all the way back in 1936.
Once the TV was in the home, though, it didn't leave. Regular programming was not only a powerful draw for the audiences, who had never been able to enjoy comedies and dramas on a regular basis, but also for advertisers, who could buy whole TV shows and direct their programming themselves. Due to later scandal among shows like this, advertising was cut into the bite-size chunks that we know today as commercials.
As TV began to really develop into a communication medium, a quest to make bigger and better displays began. When events like the Olympics were broadcast live on a black-and-white screen, it didn't really make the viewer feel like they were there. The first patent on a color television system was filed in 1940, and the first flat-panel monitor was developed in 1968 at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Technologies for these inventions have only been improved over the years: flat-screen TVs are even sharper in quality now due to LCD (liquid crystal display). This system sends electrical impulses into a crystal-covered monitor which registers changes in the colors that the crystal emits, giving the viewer an extra-sharp picture. LCDs have become more economical to produce than the CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors, which are still modeled after the original concept by Farnsworth.
From there... well, just think of anything that has an electronic display of any kind, and it probably came about due to these advancements. Add a bit of touchscreen-ness due to finger pressure or acoustic contact, and you have the whole of display technology right there. It really is fascinating how much technology can be attributed to man's desire to see something moving somewhere other than in the real world. At the very least, it's something to think about.
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Which is probably on your Kindle now, anyway. |
You all have one man to thank: Philo Farnsworth. This handsome devil was the first man ever to create an electronic television, using the powers of his patented video camera tube. The tube's sole function was to gather optical images on one end, and shoot it out as a series of electrons on the other. These electrons were shot out in a linear pattern, going across the screen of the television row by row, like someone plowing a corn field; the ray coming from the tube would travel so fast that the human eye couldn't pick up the linear pattern of the electrons, and interpreted the whole screen as one large image. This process was called rasterization. The more rows that the tube could fit onto a certain screen area, the sharper the image. Though Farnsworth patented the invention, he didn't really profit off of it; he handed the patents to another big manufacturing company in 1935 to speed up the development of the product.
Now, all of this was happening back in the late 1920's. You might be wondering: why did Marty McFly's 1955 family in Back to the Future act like the TV was something so new? Answer: World War II. TVs couldn't be produced on a massive scale in America due to the financial burdens of wartime; this delayed the real advent of the television until the 50s. Back in Britain, people were already watching the BBC, which started regular programming all the way back in 1936.
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This doesn't happen in real life. You know where it does? On TV. Mind = Blown. |
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Sometimes the only reason one watches the Superbowl. Unless you're a Giants fan, that is. |
From there... well, just think of anything that has an electronic display of any kind, and it probably came about due to these advancements. Add a bit of touchscreen-ness due to finger pressure or acoustic contact, and you have the whole of display technology right there. It really is fascinating how much technology can be attributed to man's desire to see something moving somewhere other than in the real world. At the very least, it's something to think about.
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What would the world have been like without them? |
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