Philo Farnsworth, American Inventor

Farnsworth photographed in 1927. Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906-1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of television, but is remembered for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube). He called it the image dissector and it was the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera, which he produced commercially in the form of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation, from 1938 to 1951. He held 165 patents, mostly in radio and television. Farnsworth abused alcohol in his later years and as a consequence he became seriously ill with pneumonia, and died at the age of 65 in 1971. In 1999, TIME magazine included Farnsworth in The TIME 100: The Most Important People of the Century

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