Did a 14 Year-old Invent TV?
YES! Philo T. Farnsworth, or as he preferred Phil Farnsworth, is recognized as one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century. He invented television in 1922. He was 14 years old. At the time, Farnsworth was attending a rural school house near his parent’s farm in Idaho. The farmhouse had electricity and he was fascinated by it. In a lab he set up in an attic loft he experimented with generators and electric motors. He also read articles about how scientists were trying to combine motion pictures with radio. The articles discussed the use of mirrors and spinning disks, none of which seemed realistic to Farnsworth. One night he hit on a better idea, capture incoming light in a jar that can detect the light and transmit it in a series of individual lines of electron beams. By magnetically deflect each line one at a time so that together they would form a moving picture. He sketched out his idea for his science teacher. They spent several weeks discussing the idea until they felt tha
