Who Invented The Television

Like it is when we address almost any other question pertaining to inventions, when we attempt to answer “who invented the television”, we must examine a number of individuals that played an important role in the evolution of television technology.  When answering the question of who invented the television it would be unfair to omit individuals in the answer we provide because without the discoveries of such individuals, the television might not have come into being at all.  Therefore, to examine who invented the television, we will explore the work of several individuals.

Due to the fact that the invention of the television relies on the innovations of inventors and scientists in both the fields of electricity and the fields of mechanics, it can become quite a tangled mess to identify every individual that in some way can be identified as someone who invented the television.  For example, if we consider the innovations of electricity alone, we can look back to the natural curiosities of people like Ben Franklin and Michael Faraday and work our way up to the very first working television.  Thus, a step by step timeline giving an indication of every individual that may have played a part in the invention of the television can become not only a lengthy task, it can also become a highly debated issue.

Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that inventors or scientists that played a role in the invention of the television built on the ideas of the people before them.  With this in mind, we can begin to explore who invented the television on a smaller scale and look at a few insightful individuals that brought the television into being.  By bearing in mind that each invention is benefited by those inventions that came before it, we can give proper consideration to all of the individuals that took part in the invention process.

Individuals that played a significant role in the birth of television include Paul Gottlieb Nipkow as early as the late 1800s.  Nipkow devised equipment that could transmit images, but as it is with most inventions at their early stages, Nipkow’s technology was not very practical and could not be used by many individuals.  Later, after the turn of the century, Vladimir Kosma Zworykin and Boris Rosing succeeded in sending images via a cathode ray tube, but the images were of extremely poor quality at their best. Still, their findings were an important step forward in the invention of the television.

Even later in 1925, John Logie Baird successfully transferred quality images.  Baird worked tirelessly on improving his transmission and he was, in some respects, successful.  Nevertheless the qualities of the technologies used were still in their primitive stages, and it would not be until the year 1927 that the world would see the first electronic television set.  Ultimately, the works of Philo Taylor Farnsworth resulted in the first electronic cathode ray tube television set ever created. 

Looking back at all of the scientists and inventors that played a role in who invented the television, it is easy to see how one cannot answer the question with just one name alone. Again, many inventions rely on the works of many people - each person builds on the ideas set forth by the person before them and expands upon the original ideas.  Ultimately, the answer to who invented the television should not be debated as if it were only one person who had a part in the process. Rather, when answering the question of who invented the television, it is far fairer to say that several people took part in the overall process.