Electrical Engineer
Philo Farnsworth
The key to the television picture tube came to him at 14, when he was still a farm boy, and he had a working device at 21. Yet he died in obscurity.
BY NEIL POSTMAN
For those inclined to think of our fading century as an era of
the common man, let it be noted that the inventor of one of the
century's greatest machines was a man called Phil. Even more, he
was actually born in a log cabin, rode to high school on
horseback and, without benefit of a university degree (indeed, at
age 14), conceived the idea of electronic television--the moment
of inspiration coming, according to legend, while he was tilling
a potato field back and forth with a horse-drawn harrow and
realized that an electron beam could scan images the same way,
line by line, just as you read a book. To cap it off, he spent
much of his adult life in a struggle with one of America's
largest and most powerful corporations. Our kind of guy.
I refer, of course, to Philo Taylor Farnsworth. The "of course"
is meant as a joke, since almost no one outside the industry has
ever heard of him. But we ought not to let the century expire
without attempting to make amends.
Farnsworth was born in 1906 near Beaver City, Utah, a community
settled by his grandfather (in 1856) under instructions from
Brigham Young himself. When Farnsworth was 12, his family moved
to a ranch in Rigby, Idaho, which was four miles from the nearest
high school, thus necessitating his daily horseback rides.
Because he was intrigued with the electron and electricity, he
persuaded his chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, to give him
special instruction and to allow him to audit a senior course.
You could read about great scientists from now until the 22nd
century and not find another instance where one of them
celebrates a high school teacher. But Farnsworth did, crediting
Tolman with providing inspiration and essential knowledge.
Tolman returned the compliment. Many years later, testifying at
a patent interference case, Tolman said Farnsworth's explanation
of the theory of relativity was the clearest and most concise he
had ever heard. Remember, this would have been in 1921, and
Farnsworth would have been all of 15. And Tolman was not the
only one who recognized the young student's genius. With only
two years of high school behind him, and buttressed by an
intense auto-didacticism, Farnsworth gained admission to Brigham
Young University.
