Wednesday Open Line


Two geniuses in the field of electronics whose inventions changed pastimes the world over were born in August. One was television pioneer Philo Farnsworth, whose 1906 birthday is noted today. He conceived the idea of television broadcasting while still in high school and realized it at the age of 21. The other was Lee de Forest, a Yale Ph.D. in physics. He invented the three-element vacuum tube, a step toward creating radio. Holding hundreds of patents, he was a pioneer in not only radio and television, but also film, as he synchronized sound to the motion pictures. Over 217,000 Americans work in the thousands of radio and TV broadcasting establishments advanced by Farnsworth and de Forest. Profile America is in its 19th  year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.