the life of Philo T Farnsworth - Early Television Foundation

A BOY S PURPOSE 2J
the beam so that it would etch an exact reproduction of the
original picture on the cathode surface. Because of the persistence
of vision, the varying light intensities created by the
moving pencil of electrons would give the illusion of a perfect
image.
This was Farnsworth's conception of modern television, and
it
was this that he conveyed to Tolman.
One can visualize the eager youth evening after evening
sketching out drawings of the scheme as he conceived One
it.
can hear his mentor asking pointed questions and raising doubts
here and there as the plan was unfolded. One can catch the
impetuous flow of explanations in Phil's anxious bid for approval,
and later the quiet discussion of the plan, a point at a
time, searching for holes in it.
Many such hours of discussion must have taken place, because
six years later, without any intermediate discussion or
coaching, when Tolman appeared as a witness in a patent suit
he sketched from memory
in accurate detail the television
scheme that is now the basis of the whole Farnsworth system.
Day after day, when the advanced chemistry lesson had been
completed, teacher and pupil continued to discuss the allabsorbing
idea of Phil's television scheme. It was something
made out of whole cloth from the imagination and ingenuity
of a boy's inquisitive brain. In theory they worked out the
scheme, anticipating the difficulties they would meet and overcoming
them in imagination when they seemed insuperable.
Gradually it became the consuming interest in the boy's
talked it over with his parents, who had more than sympathetic
interest in their son's chosen profession of invention.
life. He
Farnsworth had other schemes that he thought patentable,
simpler devices than the television system. His father advanced
money to file a patent application on the one that seemed most