STORY OF THE BOY WHO INVENTED TELEVISION
This segment of the Farnsworth fusion story is from Pem Farnsworth’s book, Distant Vision, beginning on page 287 she told the story of Philo applying for a patent on his fusion device: We were down to our last week before his appointment time at the patent office and that was spent in refining and retyping Phil’s fusion papers. We took the train directly to Washington, D. C., where we were met by, “Doc” Salinger, Phil’s mathematical expert, and George Gust, his patent attorney. At the patent office the head patent examiner had invited his top mathematical/atomic expert to sit in on this meeting. After Phil had finished his explanations, this man said he was sorry to say he didn’t understand the concept. His superior said: “Let me remind you that never in all the patents filed by Mr. Farnsworth have we found it necessary to reject one. I think if he says he has patentable material, then he probably does. It is up to us to be able to evaluate it. I want you to take all the time you need to be able to give me an evaluation.” Phil had anticipated difficulties in making his ideas understood and received some consolation in the reaction of the head examiner.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s, conventional wisdom maintained that the only way fusion could be attained was by heating the fuel to extraordinary temperatures, on the order of many millions of degrees. Even today, multi-billion dollar experiments are trying to duplicate the conditions at the very center of our sun, in order to strip the like charged atomic nuclei of their natural tendency to repel each other. Only by overcoming this natural repulsion can fusion be attained. Scientists since the 1950’s have attempted to produce fusion by a method called “magnetic confinement,” which uses enormous magnets to contain and compress the fusion fuel. But, heating the particles to high enough temperatures to achieve the intended effect requires inordinate amounts of energy, and the effect can be sustained only for tiny fractions of a second.
Phil’s approach to fusion was very much analogous to his approach to television thirty-three years earlier. Where the well-funded “experts,” were preoccupied with massive machines that produced very poor-if any-results. Phil had adopted an approach that was once again unique, simple, and elegant. As with his television work before, the problems and hurdles he faced were different and profuse. And as before, the experts all thought he was doomed to failure. However, this was the sort of challenge that energized Phil, he knew better than any one alive that experts are well versed only in that which is already known.
The analogy to mechanical-versus-electronic television cannot be ignored. As Phil recognized the futility of mechanical scanning, and thus devised electronic scanning, so he had recognized the futility of magnetic confinement and he never wasted a moment of mental energy contemplating magnetic confinement- he went straight on to something much less complicated.
Back in Fort Wayne Phil was delighted to have a new working lab. He was now equipped, once again, to explore the territory he most cherished-the invisible frontier, where he had nothing but his own instincts and his God-given genius upon with to rely.
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