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ucanttrustapenguin t1_iyd99ed wrote

He demonstrated it two years after logie Baird completed the first television transmission in 1925?

Edit: demonstrated*

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BailoutBill t1_iyda5pw wrote

The way I understand it, Baird didn't use the scan technique that Philo came up with and all modern screens use. So, Baird had earlier visual displays, but his tech ultimately was not used to develop modern screens.

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ramriot t1_iydckgh wrote

They both used a scanning line technique for camera & display. The key difference as I understand was that Biard's system was electromechanical while Farnsworth's was an all-electronic system. Baird was admittedly 1st, Farnsworth produced 2d something possibly independently that was more commercial & open to ongoing improvement.

If we follow the same logic for say the Phonograph then we acknowledge Edison for the cylinder phonograph but call Bell's Volta Laboratory the inventor of the modern disc phonograph.

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Scottland83 t1_iydk7ek wrote

The French had scan-line fax machines in the 1850’s right?

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ramriot t1_iye6a14 wrote

With synchronized pendulum clocks that could perhaps produce a single halftone document copy in perhaps 10 minutes. Bit of a far cry from producing & transmitting 15-25 greyscale images a second.

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Scottland83 t1_iyeepya wrote

But same concept using scan lines and one-dimensional signal.

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ramriot t1_iyf2ms9 wrote

Certainly the pantelegraph of the 1860's was conceptually a scanning device to output a serial transmission. One could argue by the same logic that taking words in lines on a page, converting & transmitting them as telegraph code serially & assembling the output back into words on a page is the same concept, something Morse & others were doing in the 1840's.

In the end all discovery is seeing a little further by standing on the shoulders of giants. Which means we acknowledge what went before but also acknowledge the thing that makes something patentable i.e.

  1. Patentable subject matter, i.e., a kind of subject-matter eligible for patent protection
  2. Novel (i.e. at least some aspect of it must be new)
  3. Non-obvious (in United States patent law) or involve an inventive step (in European patent law)
  4. Useful (in U.S. patent law) or be susceptible of industrial application (in European patent law[1])
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ucanttrustapenguin t1_iydb96o wrote

He still didn’t invent television. He invented a different technology used in television

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BailoutBill t1_iydc1mz wrote

He didn't invent visuals on a screen. He invented the first devices that evolved into modern devices we refer to as televisions: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-top-ten-patent-wars-television-10-73080/#:~:text=Philo%20T.,until%20shortly%20before%20they%20expired.

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ucanttrustapenguin t1_iydckah wrote

So how was a television broadcast demonstrated before he demonstrated his technology?

The OPs headline is incorrect. You can’t say he invented “television” when he didn’t and wasn’t the first to demonstrate a television broadcast.

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BailoutBill t1_iyde7f3 wrote

You're confusing the term "television." Technically, Baird invented what was called, at the time, a "televisor." It used tech invented by a German and used some sort of spinning disk. Farnsworth used line scanning. Televisions use line scanning.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/who-really-invented-the-mechanical-television/

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ucanttrustapenguin t1_iydin1c wrote

The worlds first television broadcast happened in 1925. Farnsworth demonstrated his tech in ‘27.

He didn’t invent television or television broadcasts. He pioneered a technology that brought it forward. The inventor of the mobile phone didn’t invent telephones. IBM didn’t invent computers. Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb.

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Hawkeye_x_Hawkeye t1_iyddewa wrote

>The OPs headline is incorrect. You can’t say he invented “television” when he didn’t and wasn’t the first to demonstrate a television broadcast.

This is like saying the inventor of the home computer didn't invent it because the Turing machine already existed.

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_iyeshto wrote

Not at all.

He didn’t invent television; it was invented by Baird.

He came up with a new and improved approach, which became the standard.

But Farnsworth was himself screwed over by David Sarnoff of RCA.

Amazing how US technological history is so full of tales like that.

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trailercock t1_iyf5r90 wrote

From what I underatand, Farnsworth did prove the concept could work or at least diagramed how electronic television could work in 1914 while he was still in school. So he probably was the first known person to publicly communicate the concept of electronic television.

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_iyf96gp wrote

Nonsense.

Baird based his television on the work of Paul Nipkow, a German scientist who patented his ideas for a complete television system in 1884. Nipkow likewise used a rotating disk with holes in it to scan images, but he never achieved more than the crudest of shadowy pictures. Various inventors worked to develop this idea, and Baird was the first to achieve easily discernible images. In 1928, Baird made the first overseas broadcast from London to New York over phone lines and in the same year demonstrated the first color television.

So many inventors and scientists had been discussing the concept for years.

Farnsworth is credited as developing the first fully electronic system.

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Pandarandrist t1_iyee8fg wrote

No, it's like saying the inventor of the "home computer" didn't invent "the computer".

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PM_UR_NUMBER_IN_HEX t1_iydee7m wrote

a turing machine is fictional device used for proofs and was created after the computer

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Hawkeye_x_Hawkeye t1_iydeuoi wrote

According to the wiki, it was invented in the 1930s. Its not fictional, it's a theoretical model of a working machine. The concept existed prior to the existence of computers. Would the inventor of image broadcasting owe credit of their invention to the inventor of the camera?

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PM_UR_NUMBER_IN_HEX t1_iydgfk2 wrote

I am a computer scientist. Computers are extremely old. The first program was written before workable computer existed and well before the 1900s. Unless you have unlimited tape the machine can't exist. It's just supposed to be the simplest possible computer.

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Sparkybear t1_iydsl5i wrote

Theoretical and fictional mean the same thing. A device with infinite memory is a thing of fiction, but because it's a useful concept for theories tested in math and science we label it theoretical instead.

Beyond that, the first computer was built by Babbage in the 1830s, 100 years before the Turing machine was thought up, unfortunately he died before he finished his general purpose analytical machine, but his differece engines are generally considered the first iterations of modern computers.

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BobbyP27 t1_iyddwnf wrote

The Baird system used spinning discs with holes at progressively different radii so that the as the disc spins, the holes trace curved lines progressively across the image. The disc in the camera and the display have to be synchronised. The system is different from the method that eventually caught on, but the principle of progressively scanning an image line by line absolutely is a feature of the Baird system.

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bastele t1_iydibgk wrote

There isn't really a singular inventor of the television, instead it's alot of people improving on eachothers work/inventing parts of what we have today.

Similar with alot of modern technology, it's the same for the telephone for example.

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herbw t1_iyesngt wrote

Zactly! And when's the time you saw a raster on the large screen TV's we most commonly use today?!!!

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squigs t1_iyero5o wrote

Yes. Baird was first. His technology was ultimately a dead end so Farnsworth deserves a certain amount of recognition, but not as "inventor of television".

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Kai_Daigoji t1_iyevn0z wrote

Baird's device wasn't really the precursor to the modern television though.

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buredemon t1_iyfcohu wrote

He was a visionary and he died broke and without fanfare. The guy I really like though was his brother-in-law, Cliff Gardner. He said to Philo, "I know everyone thinks you're crazy, but I want to be a part of this. I don't have your head for science, so I'm not gonna be much help with the design and mechanics of the invention. But it sounds like in order to do your testing, you're gonna need glass tubes."

See Philo was inventing a cathode receptor, and even though Cliff didn't know what that meant or how it worked, he'd seen Philo's drawing and he knew they were gonna need glass tubes and since television hadn't been invented yet, it's not like you could get 'em at the local TV repair shop. "I want to be a part of this", Cliff said, "and I don't have your head for science. How would it be if I taught myself to be a glassblower? And I could set up a little shop in the backyard. And I could make all the tubes you'll need for testing." There oughta be Congressional medals for people like that.

https://youtu.be/H-va0tWJLTc

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The_Only_AL t1_iydcddg wrote

The invention of television is so interesting, there were teams all over the world doing experiments and there were many hits and misses, even back to the 1800s. Brilliance + perseverance.

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ChadlyThe3rd t1_iyd6m2m wrote

Super interesting. As a CS student I had a similar “revelation” while cleaning pools for part time work. It wasn’t a novel algorithm by any means but it was a novel discovery for me.

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chapstickninja OP t1_iyd7tzo wrote

I really believe inspiration is just viewing regular tasks from a different perspective. All it takes is connecting something mundane in a novel way to break through to something new.

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duderdudeguy t1_iyecjrn wrote

The billion dollar code on Netflix has a perfect example of this

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TastyOs t1_iye2797 wrote

I’m a CS student too. Curious what algorithm the pool inspired you with

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ChadlyThe3rd t1_iyed20u wrote

The walls of the pool were tiled and from a distance it looked fine, but up close you could see minor differences in glaze or calcium buildup between the tiles. Some tiles had even been replaced with similar but not identical color tiles. I got to thinking about how they kind of resembled pixels.

From there I started thinking about pixels and how we represent colors as numbers, and how you could store data in a photo in an undetectable to the naked eye way. Depending on the data format we store different things for colors. Sometimes it’s RBGA like with PNG FILES. sometimes RBG.

You can go and set all Alpha numbers down to to the nearest even and you can then store one bit per pixel while losing minimal information in the image. If you were to set every value, R, G, B or A down to an even (just the value there -1 If odd). You lose slightly more data but still invisible to the naked eye and you can store 4 bits per pixel. This is essentially editing the Least Significant Bit (LSB) of each piece of information.

From there we can say that we have 1 byte = 2 pixels. And since each ascii char is a byte we can store 1 character every 2 pixels. You simply encode or decode the photo to retrieve or place the message.

Thus all you need to send messages is a way to send photos without the host/platform downsizing them/compressing them.

This technique is a subset of something called steganography, or hiding messages in plain sight, and is an alternative to cryptography. There is a lot of interesting study in detecting this (as it can be used by terrorists, bad actors, etc) and of course you could always encrypt your message you hide using steganography for added security.

I wrote some fun code to try and make it undetectable. Eg adding noise to the rest of the photo. Trying to evenly space out where I hid my bits in pixels, adding a “key” at a random spot on the file that would tell me what pixel to start and stop at. Very fun way to learn about image formats!

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Gemmabeta t1_iyda440 wrote

The guy who invented the sewing machine solved the issue on where to put the thread in the needle (I.e. at the tip and not the base) from a dream.

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Guardias t1_iye2zmr wrote

Learned about Farnsworth on Warehouse 13.

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ramriot t1_iydajp4 wrote

I thought he was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Logie_Baird

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deandean1125 t1_iydytmt wrote

Baird made mechanical television, basically a spinning disc with holes in it that could produce an image.

Farnsworth made what we used to use until recently.

Both had the same idea, but went about it in different ways

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Ashe_feet_97 t1_iydz73v wrote

And Baird was first.

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deandean1125 t1_iydzfgw wrote

First, yes, but his system had severe limitations. One or two people could use it, but the Farnsworth system ultimately won out because it could be viewed by many more people

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ramriot t1_iye5rs5 wrote

Then we need to remove Thomas Edison from so many inventions because his invention was not something that could be long term commercialised. For example his phonograph was a cylinder that could not be duplicated like the disc recording system derived at Bell's Volta Labs.

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herbw t1_iyes6qg wrote

Sorry you can't logically nor empirically do that to Edison. He showed it was possible and so then created a market for those. AND then they were improved because the markets made more efficient methods possible.

So you'd deny him the electric light because we use fluorescent lights & light diodes today? And tungsten filaments?

Preposterous!! Reductio ad absurdum refutations.

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ramriot t1_iyf05al wrote

Actually I'd deny Edison the electric light because he was never the first or even the 10th person to demonstrate the technology & he purchased several patents from others on his way to his "invention" . I will give him that he commercialised an integrated power distribution & lighting system (although it was DC).

Going back to the phonograph, that he perhaps was the first. I used that as a demonstration of the absurdity of calling Farnsworth the inventor of television when he clearly was not the 1st, given that his idea had more legs.

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Ashe_feet_97 t1_iye15d5 wrote

The the wright brothers invented the plane but we don't really count that because it's not a good as a Boeing 747.

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deandean1125 t1_iye5s0m wrote

I'm unsure how that equates. Airplanes today use the same control systems that the Wrights put together in 1903, the only differences are that you sit in a seat and that the elevator is in the back

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Ashe_feet_97 t1_iye6w0q wrote

> I'm unsure how that equates.

Feel free to read over it again if you like.

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french_snail t1_iyfdq1f wrote

No you should read again, you’re confusing invention with innovation.

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herbw t1_iyerhdt wrote

Actually, spinning discs cost lots more time and energy, wear and tear, than magnetically creating a faster raster system. And it could create an image which was not so much jumpin about and had faster speeds of scannin possible. It got rid of that old jumping about images found in older, moving motion pictures, too.

Because rasters were the best form, Baird was early but not a good solution. Being there with the Wright flying machine counts, but it wasn't the form Bleriot made, which was the modern propeller aircraft. Engine in front, rudder in back & flaps for turning. No need for wing warping turns, either.

Being first is good , but being efficient AND first is better. As the WRights adopted Bleriot's Aircraft structures by the 1920's.

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bolanrox t1_iyd8p9p wrote

John Moses Browning came up with the idea for gas blowback cycling after watching the wheat / tall grass around him move after he fired his rifle.

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2giga2dweebish t1_iydzzil wrote

I think there's a fair argument to be made for Browning to have had one of, if not the biggest impacts on humanity in the past century when you consider how influential his designs have been on small arms warfare. Christ, it's surprising that there's still a few of his designs in use somewhere. The 1911, Hi-Power, M2, , M1919, BAR... all in use either actively or fairly recently (I will admit I don't think the latter two have been seriously fielded recently in the past 30 years, but I'm sure there's still poorer countries using them somewhere).

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bolanrox t1_iye53s8 wrote

Cz is based on brownings patents too

And any pump shot gun..

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bolanrox t1_iyef7b5 wrote

Not to mention the Marines only officially gave up on the m1911 in the past decade.

Allegedly he said Garand was a genius too, though I've never seen an official source on that one. Thoguh we all know Patton's opinion on his rifle.

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lorddoa t1_iyeacv9 wrote

This is why I think it's important to be "well read" or well studied. The more information you have in your melon the greater pool of points of view you hold to view life situations from.

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herbw t1_iyf20f3 wrote

It's NOT a point of view which counts. But the Rules which are empirically true and useful as they r/o, r/in useful ways of doing things. One trivial fact, for instance is hardly the equivalent of knowin that a certain brand of food is, like Spam, so high in cholesterol you can die from it. Or read a reliable article which showed a certain medical treatment was withdrawn because was not effective or in fact lethal.

As always Quality of info counts. Not POV from an unknown.

Quality of info counts. How often and useful, least energy, for instance, is it?

POV are NOt relevant issues.

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_iyerxp0 wrote

He didn’t invent television; he came up with the electronic line scan system that eventually became the standard, but he received very little compensation for it.

He came up with the idea from the furrows after his teacher talked about the issues TV developers were trying to overcome.

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ItDoesntMatter59 t1_iyeyalk wrote

Correct. But somehow people take this as inventing tv in its whole

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JimblesReborn t1_iyf7ag5 wrote

Fort Wayne's finest Philo Farnsworth baby.

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HumblePie2714 t1_iyfe8zd wrote

I went to school with his granddaughter

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UAForever21 t1_iyei4za wrote

Wait so who really made the TV? Is it John Baird or Phil Farnsworth? I was always told as a kid that John Logie Baird is the inventor of the television...

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ItDoesntMatter59 t1_iyey2f2 wrote

Baird.

If you actually read the article then look up image dissector ie the videcon used to take tv pictures it gives yet more names.

Farnsworth had an input to the invention of tv but to claim its his alone is not viable.

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nullcharstring t1_iyf9yap wrote

The person that actually made TV was none of the above. Vadimir Zworykin working for David Sarnoff at RCA was able to tie up all the technology, monopolise it with patents and refine it for mass production. The popular narrative was that the technology was stolen from Farnsworth, but even so, it still took all of the resource of RCA to build the hardware to capture, broadcast and receive television, mass produce it in quantities of millions and have the political clout to obtain the radio bandwidth from the federal government needed to broadcast the signal.

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politicsfreepodcast t1_iyd82ld wrote

Amazing how a mind can leap to that. All it makes me think about is those old-timey cartoons of characters eating corn on the cob.

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uncoolcentral t1_iydgfau wrote

I pasted your comment into a couple of image generating AIs. They didn’t quite grab onto what I think you were getting at with eating in typewriter-style rows, but they otherwise did a decent enough job of interpreting your comment.

Here are 20 different images to look at.

Enjoy!

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Fantastic_Sugar_4943 t1_iyeulk1 wrote

I used to work in CBD and actually met his great grandkids who own a luxury Cannabis company, their aesthetic is television and old money, it's pretty cool!

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CarelessHisser t1_iyegfmv wrote

Maybe not the leap perse, but it definitely was a foundational step to the first TVs.

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joemamallama t1_iyfak31 wrote

My boy Philo! Literally the only claim to fame Rigby, ID will ever have.

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seattlesnow t1_iyevar2 wrote

I learned something today. If they made a movie about this guy, I’d watch it.

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herbw t1_iyeq859 wrote

That's called in ancient Gteek, who wrote and read that way, "boustrophedon" How the ox plows. Reading from Left to right and then joggin eyes back left to read to the right is stupid for 2 reasons.

First of all, we are RIGHT visual field dominant in 95%. So we should start reading from the R to L as most languages do, including Nihon and Hebrew. Next we should read boustrophedon for even more speed.

Sadly, it's based upon dreadful "that's how we do it" rather than empirical reason.

Same problems with driving. Brits and many in UK & CW drive L side of road. Head on collisions are high speed and we attend to and avoid those best, driving on the Left.

That too is a real problem.

Many of our arbitrary customs are similarly flawed and not in our best interests. no one bothered to think.

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