Vladimir Zworykin, 1929, holding his kinescope

Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin (Russian: Владимир Козьмич Зворыкин) (July 30, 1889 - July 29, 1982) was a Russian-American inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing cathode ray tubes. He was instrumental in the practical development of television from the early thirties, including charge storage-type tubes, infrared image tubes and the electron microscope. Several biographers have called him the "true" inventor of television, although there remains healthy dispute about this designation. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Kinescope (IPA: [], []) originally referred to the cathode ray tube used in television monitors. ... is the 211th day of the year (212th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 210th day of the year (211th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... The cathode ray tube or CRT, invented by Karl Ferdinand Braun, is the display device used in most computer displays, televisions and oscilloscopes. ... For other uses, see Infrared (disambiguation). ... An electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses electrons to illuminate and create an image of a specimen. ... Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor. ...

Biography

Zworykin was born in Murom, Russia, in 1889, perhaps on July 30, to the family of a prosperous merchant. He had a relatively calm upbringing, rarely seeing his father except on religious holidays. He studied at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, under Boris Rosing. According to recently discovered accumulated personal correspondence of Zworykin, he helped Boris Rosing with experimental work on television in the basement of Rosing's private lab at the School of Artillery of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Rosing had filed his first patent on a television system in 1907, featuring a very early cathode ray tube as a receiver, and a mechanical device as a transmitter. Its demonstration in 1911, based on an improved design, was among the first demonstrations of TV of any kind. Murom downtown sprawls along the bank of the Oka Murom (Russian: ; Old Norse: Moramar) is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls majestically along the left bank of Oka River, about 300 km east of Moscow, at 55°34′N 42°02′E. Population is 145,500 (2002). ... is the 211th day of the year (212th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Lapel pin of a graduate from Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Technology Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technological University) (Russian: ) is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Russia (founded in 1828), that currently trains around 5000 students. ... Boris Lvovich Rosing (Russian: ) (1869 – 1933) was a Russian scientist and inventor in the field of television. ... Saint Petersburg  listen (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991...

Although most biographies maintain that Zworykin graduated in 1912 and, thereafter, studied X-rays under Professor Paul Langevin in Paris, in the above referenced correspondence Zworykin gives the dates of having studied with Rosing as between 1910 and 1914. Be that as it may, During World War I, Zworykin was enlisted and served in the Russian Signal Corps, then succeeded in getting a job working for Russian Marconi, testing radio equipment that was being produced for the Russian Army. Zworykin decided to leave Russia for the United States in 1918 or 1919. According to Albert Abramson's biography, he seems to have arrived in the U.S. at the end of 1918, and again at the end of 1919. This, if confirmed, would leave room for a sojourn in Paris to study under Langevin, before moving back to the USA in December 1919. Paul Langevin (January 23, 1872 â€“ December 19, 1946) was a prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ...

Once in the U.S., Zworykin found work at the Westinghouse laboratories in Pittsburgh, where he eventually had an opportunity to engage in television experiments. He summarized the resulting invention in two patent applications, the first, entitled "Television Systems", filed on December 29, 1923, followed up by a second application of essentially the same content, but with minor changes and the addition of a Paget-type screen for color transmission and reception. This article is about the defunct Westinghouse Electric Corporation founded in 1886, renamed CBS Corporation in 1997, and purchased by Viacom in 1999. ... “Pittsburgh” redirects here. ...

Vladimir Zworykin demonstrates electronic television. 1929

Zworykin described cathode ray tubes as both transmitter and receiver, the operation, whose basic thrust was to prevent the emission of electrons between scansion cycles--a solution reminiscent of A.A. Campbell Swinton's proposal, published in Nature in December 1911. This would result in the television signal being derived from the modest number of electrons released at the instant the cathode ray swept over an image point (pixel). Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton (1863 - 1930) was a consulting electrical engineer born in Edinburgh. ...

The demonstration given by Zworykin sometime late 1925 or early 1926 (not in 1923, as popular accounts would have it) was far from a success with the Westinghouse management, even though it showed the possibilities inherent in a system based on the Braun tube. Although he was told by management to "devote his time to more practical endeavours", Zworykin continued his efforts to perfect his system. As attested to by his own writing, including his doctoral dissertation of 1926, earning him a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, his experiments were directed at improving the output of photoelectric cells. The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related, doctoral/research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. ...

There were, however, limits to how far one could go along these lines, and so, in 1929, Zworykin returned to vibrating mirrors and facsimile transmission, filing patents describing these. At this time, however, he was also experimenting with an improved cathode ray receiving tube, filing a patent application for this in November 1929, and introducing the new receiver that he named Kinescope, reading a paper two days later at a convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Following several attempts to form a technical organization of wireless practitioners in 1908-1912, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was finally established in 1912 in New York. ...

Having developed the prototype of the receiver by December, Zworykin met David Sarnoff, who eventually hired him and put him in charge of television development for RCA at their newly established laboratories in Camden, New Jersey. David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891–December 12, 1971) was the Pioneer of American Television and founder of the [National Broadcasting Corporation][1], NBC. Throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in various capacities shortly after its founding in 1919 to his retirement in 1970. ... RCA, formerly an acronym for the Radio Corporation of America, is now a trademark owned by Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. ... The City of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey in the United States. ...

The move to the laboratories occurred in the spring of 1930 and the difficult task of developing a transmitter could begin. There was an in-house evaluation in mid-1930, where the kinescope performed well with 80 line definition, but the transmitter was of a mechanical type. The breakthrough would come when the Zworykin team decided to develop a new type of cathode ray transmitter, one described in the French and British patents of 1928 priority by the Hungarian inventor Kalman Tihanyi whom the company had approached in July 1930, after the publication of his patents in England and France. This was a curious design, one where the scanning electron beam would strike the photoelectric cell from the same side where the optical image was cast. Even more importantly, it was a system characterized by an operation based on an entirely new principle, the principle of the accumulation and storage of charges during the entire time between two scansions by the cathode-ray beam. Kálmán Tihanyi (April 28, 1897 - February 26, 1947), was a Hungarian physicist, electrical engineer and inventor. ...

According to Albert Abramson, these experiments started in April 1931, and after the achievement of the first promising experimental transmitters, on October 23, 1931, it was decided: the new camera tube would be named Iconoscope. The system was ready to be launched at the end of 1934, a contract had of course been signed with the Hungarian inventor for the purchase of his patents. In early 1935, the new tube was introduced in Germany. It was soon developed there, with some improvements, and was successfully used at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games as one of several cameras, including Farnsworth's Image Dissector for film transmission only, broadcasting the games to some two-hundred public theaters. The Games of the XI Olympiad were held in 1936 in Germany. ...

Although the tube went through a number of adjustments and improvements, it continued to be called by the generic name of Iconoscope. According to some reliable claims, ^{[attribution needed]} the secondary electron multiplier which became the part of the final development of the Iconoscope, the Image-Orthicon, was the multiplier developed by Philo Farnsworth.

The developments in England, by the British firm Marconi/EMI, followed the original charge storage design under a patent exchange. This electronic system was officially adopted by the BBC whose experimental public broadcasts began in England in November 1936 and initially included the Baird-system. The British electronic system featured 405 scanning lines, while German television adopted 441 line scanning and so did RCA following the initial (1934) 375 line definition. For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... The year 1936 in television involved some significant events. ... Bust of John Logie Baird in Helensburgh. ...

Zworykin retired in 1954. Throughout his steady rise in rank, he remained involved in the many important developments of the company and received several outstanding honours, including, in 1934, the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award. The IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award was established in 1919 by the Institute of Radio Engineers (now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) in honor of Colonel Morris N. Liebmann. ...

Legacy

He was inducted into the New Jersey Inventor's Hall of Fame; and the National Inventors Hall of Fame The New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame was started in 1989. ... Exterior of the National Inventors Hall of Fame museum, 2005 The National Inventors Hall of Fame is an organization that honors important inventors from the whole world. ...

Quote

"I hate what they've done to my child...I would never let my own children watch it."

- Vladimir Zworykin on his feelings about watching television.

See also

• Philo Farnsworth
• John Logie Baird
• Kalman Tihanyi

Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor. ... Bust of John Logie Baird in Helensburgh. ... Kálmán Tihanyi (April 28, 1897 - February 26, 1947), was a Hungarian physicist, electrical engineer and inventor. ...

References

• Albert Abramson: "The History of Television 1880 to 1941", Jefferson: McFarland, 1987
• Albert Abramson: "Die Geschichte des Fernsehens 1880 bis 1941", München, Fink Verlag, 2003
• Albert Abramson: "Zworykin, Pioneer of Television", University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 1995
• Fritz Schröter: "Handbuch der Bildtelegraphie und des Fernsehens", Berlin: Julius Springer, 1932
• Fritz Schröter: "Fernsehen. Die neueste Entwicklung insbesondere der deutschen Fernsehtechnik", Berlin: Julius Springer, 1937
• Walter Bruch: "Kleine geschichte des deutschen Fernsehens", Berlin: Hande & Spender, 1967

Further reading

• Abramson, Vladimir Zworykin: Pioneer of Television
• A 1975 interview with Vladimir Zworykin
• Zworykin's biography at the IEEE History Center
• Compilation of biographies of Vladimir Zworykin- including photographs and bibliography, compiled by Prof. Eugenii Katz of The Hebrew University.
• Recipients of the IEEE Vladimir K. Zworykin Award