STORY OF THE BOY WHO INVENTED TELEVISION
Farnsworth’s fusion story continued from Mrs. Farnsworth’s book “Distant Vision,” chapter thirty-one, page 300…Phil saved his grandest vision for the future of man’s exploration and colonization of space, which he believed would one day exceed the predictions of even the most imaginative fiction writers. At the heart of Phil’s vision for space travel was a fusion-powered starship. Once the Fusor was perfected, he figured it would be a relatively simple matter to employ it as a star drive and that a fountain pen sized fuel could fly to mars.
On a more theoretical note, Phil was equally convinced that our concept of distance would soon be replaced and man would discover the means to cross the vast emptiness of space. He summed it up in the simple question, “Why do we have to spend so much energy to cross something which is actually nothing?”
Phil’s visions might sound utopian, fantastic, and unachievable. But one must remember that his was a unique perspective, he knew all these things are possible because he knew what he was about to create in his Pontiac Street laboratory. Thus, his vision was a window to the future through which only he could see, and he did everything he could to share that perspective with all who cared to listen. All he had to do was sustain a fusion reaction, and the future would be at our doorsteps…
…From a letter Pem Farnsworth wrote to her sister Agnes October 1963: Phil is on the home stretch now, and he has the bit in his teeth. Two years ago, I would not have believed he could survive a pace half as strenuous. The next week will be the most hectic yet-because people have begun getting in his hair. The company has had it under wraps-but the time is coming soon when they won’t need or want to. I marvel at the drive Phil exhibits. We both feel strongly that he has unseen help as he’s solved not one but a dozen of the most pressing problems. Our fight is not yet over; we expect the AEC and other fission factions to put up a fight as long as they can-then they will try to *prove they did it!
While considerable progress was made and valuable data compiled, the ultimate goal of a self-sustained fusion reaction still remained tantalizingly out of reach. There was little question but that Phil was able to produce fusion, as evidenced by the prodigious neutron counts, and the operation was stable and could be controlled by the operator. Despite the astounding numbers, that far surpassed the results produced anywhere else in the world (including today), Phil’s superiors at ITT were beginning to object to the considerable costs involved. *Like RCA and David Sarnoff attempted to do when they claimed they were the first to invent a television system and although they lost the patent dispute filed by PT Farnsworth, the History Channel still today gives all the credit for the advent of television to David Sarnoff instead of PT Farnsworth? To be continued…
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