The Farm Boy Who Invented Television
pplpod10 Jun

The Farm Boy Who Invented Television

On July 3rd, 1957, a man introduced only as "Dr. X" stumped the celebrity panel of the CBS quiz show I've Got a Secret. His secret: "I invented electronic television." For giving the world the medium broadcasting that very show, the producers handed Philo T. Farnsworth $80 and a carton of Winston cigarettes. The true father of the screen had been swallowed whole by history.

This episode follows the 14-year-old Idaho farm boy who saw the architecture of the modern screen in the parallel rows of a plowed potato field, sketched the math across his chemistry teacher's blackboards, and built the device in a San Francisco garage. It covers the brutal patent war with RCA, won in court partly thanks to that teacher's testimony, the financial ruin that followed anyway, and the night in 1969 when watching Neil Armstrong's step made him tell his wife it had all been worthwhile.

  • The ranch with a generator: a teenage scavenger who automated his mother's washing machine
  • Why spinning discs were doomed: the mechanical bottleneck a potato field solved with electrons
  • Blackboards as evidence: the chemistry teacher whose 1922 sketches beat RCA in court
  • Winning the patent, losing the fortune: how a corporate monopoly outlasted a lone inventor
  • "This has made it all worthwhile": the moon landing, the Emmy award in his name, and the statue that came down

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(8442)

Aespa: How K-Pop's Metaverse Group Conquered the Charts

Aespa: How K-Pop's Metaverse Group Conquered the Charts

Aespa turned a bold sci-fi avatar concept into one of K-pop's defining acts of the 2020s. Built by SM Entertainment and debuting in November 2020 with Black Mamba, the group of Karina, Giselle, Winter...

2 Jul 19min

Alanis Morissette and the Fury Behind Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette and the Fury Behind Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette went from being dubbed the Debbie Gibson of Canada, a synth-pop teen who opened for Vanilla Ice, to the queen of alt-rock angst behind a single album that sold over 33 million copies...

2 Jul 21min

Thank U, Next: How Grief Rewrote the Pop Rulebook

Thank U, Next: How Grief Rewrote the Pop Rulebook

In late 2018, at the peak of her career, Ariana Grande's personal life shattered publicly. Rather than issue careful PR statements, she locked herself in a studio with friends and champagne and made a...

2 Jul 20min

Ariana Grande: From Rejected R&B Kid to Pop Mogul

Ariana Grande: From Rejected R&B Kid to Pop Mogul

At 14, Ariana Grande was laughed out of a Los Angeles boardroom for pitching a soulful R&B album. Years later she held the top three spots on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously, a feat untouched sin...

2 Jul 20min

Arlo Parks: The Cost of Comforting a Generation

Arlo Parks: The Cost of Comforting a Generation

Arlo Parks went from a teenager writing poems and listening to too much emo music to winning the Mercury Prize, touring with Billie Eilish, and co-writing for Beyonce. This deep dive traces her accele...

2 Jul 17min

Beabadoobee: The Misfit Who Escaped Her Viral Fame

Beabadoobee: The Misfit Who Escaped Her Viral Fame

Expelled from a strict Catholic school for misfit behavior, a teenager taught herself guitar from YouTube and uploaded a song as a joke under a gibberish Instagram name. Years later she was opening fo...

2 Jul 20min

Bebe Rexha: The Secret Hitmaker Who Claimed Her Voice

Bebe Rexha: The Secret Hitmaker Who Claimed Her Voice

She wrote a Grammy-winning track for Eminem and Rihanna, penned K-pop hits, and shaped the sound of pop radio, yet could walk through a coffee shop unrecognized. This deep dive into Bebe Rexha examine...

2 Jul 17min

Beyonce's Cowboy Carter and the Reclaiming of Country

Beyonce's Cowboy Carter and the Reclaiming of Country

When Beyonce performed a country song at the 2016 CMA Awards, the response was to scrub the evidence and reject the song as not country enough. This deep dive into her 2024 landmark album Cowboy Carte...

2 Jul 17min

Populært innen Underholdning

enkel-servering
papaya
storefri-med-mikkel-og-herman
big-5-med-nils-og-harald-2
harm-og-hegseth
tusvik-tnne
topp-3-med-wold-og-fladseth
kjendiscrush-med-sofie-karlstad
konspirasjonspodden
hovla
tore-og-haralds-podkast
folk-flest-med-linn-og-nils
ma-pa-behandling-med-morten-ramm
vitnemal
gi-meg-alle-detaljene
nare-venner
rss-gammal-maiden
feedback-med-egon-holstad
singel
humorprisen