The Boy Genius and the Mogul
The Boy Genius and the Mogul tells the story of the invention
of television. This is one of those inventions where you can't really
point to one person. It's not like the lightbulb and Thomas Edison or
the cotton gin and Eli Whitney. Television was something that a lot of
people were working towards at the same time, a race to create this new
technology that everyone expected and could tell was very near. It was
also at the time when science shifted from lone men with a lot of money
and leisure time inventing things on their own to massive, well-funded
research divisions under the umbrella of technology companies. So there
isn't really one person who can take credit for the invention of
television. But there are a handful of key people, and one in particular
whose ideas, at least, were a few years ahead of everyone else.
The book focuses in on Phil Farnsworth (namesake for the professor in Futurama), a young genius who worked tirelessly to get a television into mass production before anyone else, and David Sarnoff, who controlled the radio industry and was determined to control television as well. The chapters switch back and forth between the two men, with sidetracks into the work of other men in America and England who were instrumental in the progression of television. The chapters about Farnsworth tended to focus on the science and technology that went into the invention, which I found fascinating. I also loved the image of a few dedicated engineers working around the clock in a little lab to achieve their dreams.
But there was more to television than just coming up with the idea. This was near the beginning of big industry, so business played a very important factor as well. There was something of a patent war going on behind the scenes, as people tried to balance getting there first with not tipping their hand to all of the competition. It was easy to see how Sarnoff's strategy of gobbling up all the patents acted as the forerunner for the business plans of a bunch of modern technology companies. But this wasn't something I was terribly interested in. The science just held my attention better.
Still, the story was interesting (if occasionally dry) and tragic (Farnsworth lost out big time in the long run). I just wish the book had better footnotes or endnotes. The complete lack of citations, along with a rather short bibliography, had me questioning the validity of a lot of the author's claims.
The book focuses in on Phil Farnsworth (namesake for the professor in Futurama), a young genius who worked tirelessly to get a television into mass production before anyone else, and David Sarnoff, who controlled the radio industry and was determined to control television as well. The chapters switch back and forth between the two men, with sidetracks into the work of other men in America and England who were instrumental in the progression of television. The chapters about Farnsworth tended to focus on the science and technology that went into the invention, which I found fascinating. I also loved the image of a few dedicated engineers working around the clock in a little lab to achieve their dreams.
But there was more to television than just coming up with the idea. This was near the beginning of big industry, so business played a very important factor as well. There was something of a patent war going on behind the scenes, as people tried to balance getting there first with not tipping their hand to all of the competition. It was easy to see how Sarnoff's strategy of gobbling up all the patents acted as the forerunner for the business plans of a bunch of modern technology companies. But this wasn't something I was terribly interested in. The science just held my attention better.
Still, the story was interesting (if occasionally dry) and tragic (Farnsworth lost out big time in the long run). I just wish the book had better footnotes or endnotes. The complete lack of citations, along with a rather short bibliography, had me questioning the validity of a lot of the author's claims.
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