The invention of television is a highly debated topic. There are several inventors who have claimed credit for the invention. Guglielmo Marconi first created wireless telegraphy in 1897, and after this invention, many inventors began to experiment with sending images and sound wirelessly as well.
Edwin Belin, and Englishman who was living in France was the first one to transmit photographs wirelessly. On the 2nd of December, 1922, Belin showed his invention off. Belin’s invention was a mechanical device that took flashes of light which produced sound waves. These sound waves could be received in a different location and then turned back into flashes of light on a mirror. This was the precursor to television. However, it wasn’t until the invention of electronic scanning of imagery, where images are broken up into tiny bits of light and then sent by radio waves, that modern television came about.
The invention of the modern television comes down to two inventors who were working on the same invention at the same time. Philo Taylor Farnsworth and Vladimir Kosma Zworykin both competed to invent the first TV. In 1923, Zworykin patented the iconoscope, which was an electronic image scanner, and the primitive form of a television camera. However it was Farnsworth that was first able to successfully demonstrate the technology in 1927, using a scanning tube of his design which he then patented. Thus Farnsworth became credited for invented the modern television, although he essentially improved upon Zworykin’s design. Zworykin, who began to work for RCA, would later try to claim rights for the essence of television, but in the trial to decide the true inventor, Farnsworth’s high school science teacher was brought to Washington in order to testify that Farnsworth had first came up with his idea of the television scanning tube as a 14 year old. RCA was forced to pay Farnsworth royalties in 1939.
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