EOTO: Television

The Television has been one of the most impactful technological creations of all time. In 1946, just 8,000 U.S. households owned a Television and now over 96% of American families have at least one in their house. The average American today spends two to five hours a day watching TV. Interestingly, however, even back in 1950, the average American who owned a TV still watched for 5 hours a day. A typical American home now contains 2.3 TV's. There is no doubt that Television has drastically affected our society but who should be credited with its invention? What does the Television's complicated history show?

There is much debate over who deserves the credit for inventing the TV. The fact of the matter is that not one person can take that credit. The electronic version of the Television was initially found to be successful on September, 7th, 1927, in San Francisco, California. Designed by the young Philo Taylor Farnsworth, the electronic Television took off and the company Farnsworth was working for was renamed after him. 

Before this, however, other inventors were working with their o

wn versions of early TV prototypes. In Russia, a man named Boris Rosing had made attempts at transmitting images 16 years before Farnsworth's initial success. Two men helped to invent a mechanical TV -- in the U.S., Charles Francis Jenkins, and in England, John Logie Baird. These innovative creators formed mechanical Television systems by using a spiral pattern on rotating disks with holes in it. Utilizing this mechanism, the mechanical Television was able to scan images. While the mechanical TV was fir

st demonstrated a year before the electronic, it did have limitations such as a capped amount of lines of resolution. This gave the electronic version a clear advantage. Even so, the mechanical Television was still a critical breakthrough in this piece of technology. However, the electronic version of the TV is what took off. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) is an American company that dominated the radio industry at this time. Because of this dominance, it had the funds to invest 50 million dollars into the further development of electronic TV, seeing its potential. RCA's president, David Sarnoff, recruited Russian scientist Vladimir Zworykin who had helped in Boris Rosing's earlier experiments. At the 1939 New York World's Fair, RCA televised the opening which even included a speech from then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Later in the same year, RCA bought a license to use Philo Taylor Farnsworth's electronic TV patents in order to start selling systems. Through the pros and cons of the mechanical and electronic systems, both contributed undeniably toward the production of TVs as we know them today. Various people from around the globe made strides in their own ways and can all be considered equally important.

Overall, the invention of the TV has greatly impacted our world. It has shaped the way we consume our news, entertainment, and more. The world we live in today would not be anywhere close to the same as it currently is without it.