ISBN-13: 978-0-547-01705-1ISBN-10: 0-547-01705-7

1031561

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

3.2.10

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Online Leveled Books

Level: R

DRA: 40

Genre:Biography

Strategy:Summarize

Skill:Main Ideas and Details

Word Count: 1,199

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS: Cover © Bettmann/CORBIS. 1 © 1997 PhotoDisc, Inc. All rights reserved. Images provided by © 1997 CMCD. 2 © 1997 PhotoDisc, Inc. All rights reserved. Images provided by © 1997 CMCD. 3 Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved. 4 © 1997 PhotoDisc, Inc. All rights reserved. Images provided by © 1997 CMCD. 5 (all) photo from Nostalgiaville http://gono.com. 6 © Comstock. 7 © Chuck Haney/Corbis. 8 (paper) ©1995 PhotoDisc, Inc. All rights reserved. Images ©1995 CMCD, Inc. (sketch) Philo T. Farnsworth Archives. 9 © Michael Maslan Historic Photographs/CORBIS. 10 © Bettmann/CORBIS. 11 © Bettmann/CORBIS. 12 © Bettmann/CORBIS. 13 © Bettmann/CORBIS. 14 (from top) Utah State Archives. ©1996 PhotoDisc, Inc. All rights reserved. Images provided by © 1996 Steve Cole. Philo T. Farnsworth Archives. © Bettmann/CORBIS. © Bettmann/CORBIS.

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by Katrina Van Horn

2

T elevision is everywhere. It’s been around so long that most people never stop and think about life before TV, or wonder how TV came to be. Maybe that’s one reason Philo Farnsworth (FIE lo FARNZ wurth) isn’t famous. But it’s not every day that someone thinks up a world-changing idea at age 14. And that’s just what Philo did. He was the kid who invented television.

That’s right. The idea of the television picture tube came to Philo when he was still a 14-year-old farm boy! By the time he was 21, he had created a working model of a television.

The television that Philo created looked a lot different from this modern TV.

3

A Hard Childhood Philo grew up in a time and place when leisure—

free time to play or hang out on the couch—barely existed. Born in Indian Springs, Utah, in 1906, he had a childhood filled with hard work and hardships. Philo and his family struggled to survive on the new frontier. As the oldest child in the family, Philo not only did farm and household chores, but he also helped take care of the younger kids. He went to school, too. He was okay at school, but not great—nobody thought he was a genius, that’s for sure! He seemed like a pretty regular kid.

Philo T. Farnsworth as a young man

4

What’s an Inventor?As Philo got older, he became more and more

interested in new inventions. The telephone, for example, seemed pretty amazing back then. Philo couldn’t believe someone in another state could talk right into his ear as if she were in the same room! Philo couldn’t stop asking his father questions about how it had been invented. His father explained that the telephone, and other useful products such as the light bulb, were created by people who spent their lives developing ideas for new things. These people, he explained, were called inventors.

Philo decided an inventor was a pretty great thing to be. He started looking around and thinking about what he could invent. What did people need that didn’t exist yet?

Philo was fascinated by inventions such as the telephone.

5

The Lure of ScienceWhen Philo’s family moved to Idaho to work on a

farm, Philo discovered a bunch of science magazines sitting in the attic. During occasional free moments, Philo read every page of these magazines. That’s where he first learned about the idea of television. He was fascinated by the notion of sending a picture signal through the air. He spent more and more time thinking about it.

Reading about science changed Philo’s life. He became extremely curious about how things work, and he felt that he could never learn enough. He became a much better student at school. Still, most of what he learned was from his own reading.

Philo read as many books and magazines about science as he could.

6

Getting into GadgetsAt age 13, Philo won his first national science

contest. He invented a lock that could not be broken by thieves.

But Philo was most interested in any kind of gadget that ran with electric power. He wanted to understand how electricity worked. He was so eager to learn about electricity that he asked his chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, to give him special lessons and allow him to take a class that was meant for kids in the last year of high school.

The radio was a fairly new electric gadget when Philo was a boy.

7

According to legend, Philo came up with the idea of electronic television while he was plowing a potato field. As he drove his horse along the field, back and forth among the rows of potatoes, he realized that an electronic beam could scan images the same way, line by line, just as you plow a field or read a book.

Plowing the rows in a field of potatoes may have inspired Philo’s idea.

8

At age 16, Philo drew a design for Tolman that showed how a device could change electricity into pictures by controlling the speed and direction of electrons (the particles, or tiny pieces, that make electricity).

Philo called his invention an “image dissector.” His teacher kept the drawing, even though it had nothing to do with his class assignment. The drawing turned out to be important years later.

Philo drew this design for his “image dissector.” It would take some years before it became important.

9

After only two years of high school, Philo started college, at Brigham Young University, in Utah. While he was there, he studied more about electricity and television picture transmission. When his father died, Philo had to drop out of the university to help support his family.

Philo learned about transmitting pictures by television at Brigham Young University in Utah.

10

TV is Born!In 1926, Philo moved to San Francisco and set

up a laboratory in an empty building. He did one experiment after another. On September 7, 1927, he painted a square of glass black and scratched a straight line on the center. In another room, an assistant dropped the slide between a camera tube and a hot, bright lamp.

Philo watched the receiver. They saw the image of the straight line. Then, as the assistant turned the slide 90 degrees, they saw it move. They saw the first electronic television picture ever transmitted!

Philo said, simply, “There you are, electronic television.” It was as if he thought it was the simplest thing in the world to make.

Philo Farnsworth works on television parts in one of his laboratories.

11

Rivals Get Ahead of Philo By this time, many other people had started

working on ideas for sending pictures electronically. Some of them were more successful at making working televisions. They got ahead of Philo and were able to make money on the new technology. But Philo had been the first person with the big idea. By using the drawing of Philo’s “image dissector,” which his high-school teacher had kept, Philo was able to prove that he was the real inventor of television.

Philo gets an early TV camera ready to transmit a picture.

Philo Farnsworth adjusts the controls on one of his first television receivers.

12

Philo Gets His Due Philo never got rich from his invention. And

during his lifetime, he never became famous as the “father of television.”

Philo died in 1971, poor and unhappy that he’d never gotten the respect he deserved.

In 1985, students and teachers from a Utah elementary school asked the state government to put up a statue in honor of Philo Farnsworth. After all, he was one of the greatest electronic inventors who ever lived! It took them two years to get their wish, but in 1987 an artist began to make a bronze statue of Philo Farnsworth, and in 1990 the statue was sent to Washington, D.C. where it represents the state of Utah in Statuary Hall in the Capitol.

13

Today, Philo T. Farnsworth is famous as one of Utah’s most important citizens, and everyone finally knows him as the “father of television,” thanks to that Utah elementary school.

It would take many years after Philo’s invention for him to be honored as the “father of television.”

14

The Life ofPhilo Farnsworth

1906Born inIndian Springs, Utah.

1919Won his first nationalscience contest.

1920Had idea forelectronic television.

1926Set up lab inSan Francisco.

1927Transmitted firstTV picture.

1971Died in Utah.

15

RespondingTARGET SKILL Main Ideas and Details

Copy the chart below. Write the main idea that is supported by the story details

Text to World What is the best invention ever made? Write a two-paragraph essay that gives your opinion about this. Be sure to use main ideas and details in your two paragraphs.

Write About It

Main Idea?

Detail Philo thought that the telephone was interesting.

Detail Philo’s father told him about inventors.

16

electricexperimentgadgetgenius

inventionlaboratoryoccasionalsignal

TARGET VOCABULARY

TARGET SKILL   Main Ideas and Details  Tell important ideas and details about a topic.

TARGET STRATEGY   Summarize  Tell the important parts of the text in your own words.

GENRE  A biography tells about events in a person’s life, written by another person.

chemistryelectronsfrontier

hardshipsparticlestransmitted

ExpaND YouR VocabulaRY

ISBN-13: 978-0-547-01705-1ISBN-10: 0-547-01705-7

1031561

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

3.2.10

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Online Leveled Books

Level: R

DRA: 40

Genre:Biography

Strategy:Summarize

Skill:Main Ideas and Details

Word Count: 1,199