Television

From fuzzy pictures to high-definition images, watching television has kept us informed and entertained for decades. TelevisionThe marvelous machine that brings the WORLD to your living room

By the way... Some of my early inventions weren’t successful: I cut myself badly with my rust-proof razor, and my air-soled shoes burst.

Baird’s biscuit-tin TV

In 1926, an excited audience in London, England, became the first people ever to watch television. Scottish inventor John Logie Baird had cobbled together a tea chest, biscuit tins, hat boxes, and darning needles to come up with a mechanical TV. The audience watched a scary-looking ventriloquist’s dummy named Stookie Bill.

It paved the way for...

With the invention

of video cassettes and dvds, people could watch movies at home on TV. Baird achieved the first transatlantic TV transmission in 1928.

Switching on

Although they were exciting, Baird’s television pictures were so Fuzzy that his system was soon abandoned. A few years later, Russian-American inventor Vladimir Zworykin improved the cathode-ray tube (a device for showing images on a screen), and used it in a new type of electrical TV. Sales had skyrocketed by the 1950s, with millions of people enjoying news and entertainment via the magic of moving pictures in their homes.

Everyone could be a star after the camcorder was invented in 1980.

The first closeD-circuiT TV systems were developed in the 1940s—and are now

used in many builDings.

the worldHow it changed

Television enabled people to watch events happening all over the globe without leaving the house. It became the world’s most popular form of entertainment.

Did you know? Around 500 million viewers worldwide watched on TV as the first humans landed on the Moon in 1969.

Digital TV

The television you turn on today probably uses digital technology and a flat liquidcrystal display instead of a cathode ray tube. Digital TV means you can choose from many more TV channels, and watch your favorite shows in great detail thanks to highdefinition image technology.

HOW In cathode-ray televisions, electron beams emerge from IT WO R KS a cathode. Electromagnets controlled by the TV direct the electron across the screen to trace out a picture. Phosphors—substances that glow when the electron beams hit them—make the picture visible. Mixtures of red, green, and blue phosphors can make any other color.

Cathode Anode

Magnet

Electron beam The inside of the screen is coated with phosphors.

Baird first developed 3-D TV in 1928—not surprisingly, it wasn’t as good as the version that launched in 2010.