edge had not then advanced to a point where very much of anything in the way of a telephone could be evolved.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course Edison was breaking into this field where it was necessary to bring together cooperative effort and the knowledge of others, perhaps not to the extent that you had to do that, but I conceive Edison to be a figure in the modern world very different from Alexander Graham Bell, for example, who invented the original device on which the whole telephone system is based. I rather imagine that Bell didn't require, for the patenting of that device, anything like the cooperative effort that you have required to develop your idea, although the progressive improvements of his device require the sort of laboratory that was described here yesterday by Dr. Jewett.

Mr. DIENNER. I think our chairman has put his finger on the significant fact that although an invention starts with an individual and that individual must somehow arrange to make the tools to make the tools to reach the objective, the research laboratory is the human tool concept of the picture. The physical tools, the iron and steel tools, are only part of the picture. The human tools must also be applied, such as are available, and I think our brilliant chairman has caught the modern situation in this particular case history. Here is a man who has an idea. He must make the tools on the physical side and on the human side in order to develop the thing fully.

Mr. PATTERSON. Mr. Farnsworth, what is your title in the Farnsworth Television Corporation?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I am vice president in charge of research.

Mr. PATTERSON. How many patents, approximately, have you taken out?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I think the number runs into around 46 at the present time, with probably twice that many applications entered. Mr. PATTERSON. Out of those 46, and applications pending, how many, approximately, are you the sole inventor of?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I should say three-fourths of those.

Mr. PATTERSON. You began with this idea that you conceived a great many years ago, and you had no money. You borrowed money. I would like to ask you, are you still in control of your company?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I am not in control of the company but I still own twice as much stock as any other stockholder, have twice as much interest in the company as any other stockholder.

Mr. PATTERSON. You are the largest stockholder?
Mr. FARNSWORTH. I am the largest stockholder.
(Representative Reece took the chair.)

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. I came in a little late, and for my information will you please state if you and your associates developed the principles upon which television is being worked out?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The early principles of television I conceived in the period from 1922 to 1927 are the system now adopted, fundamentally at least, throughout the world, and while our company has in no way been completely responsible for the development, nevertheless the fundamental ideas underlying it were the entire basis for our early research.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. There are now other companies in the United States who are working on television also?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; there are many, and there are many in other countries, but this basic idea of no moving parts is common to

124491-39-pt. 3—11

all systems, with the possible exception of one or two that are being used in the world.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Are there only a comparatively small group who are in your company, or has the stock been more or less open to the public?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It has in no sense been open to the public. The diversification of the stock has come more through stockholders themselves trading around among themselves than it has been otherwise. The bulk of the money has been put up by very few stockholders. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. So that the stock is mostly held within a comparatively small group of individuals.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is closely held and the majority of the stock is held by a very small group.

Mr. DIENNER. Mr. Farnsworth, I understand you developed a tube which produces radiation somewhat like radium. Is that correct?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. We have worked on a tube, the ultimate object of which is to produce very short radiation, very short X-rays, while not comparable with radium as yet but for the same purpose as radium, and also for producing very high velocity electrons.

Mr. DIENNER. That can be used for X-ray purposes, is that correct? Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; it can be used as an inexpensive source of very short X-rays, corresponding to tubes of 1 to 5 to 10 million volts. Mr. DIENNER. Going back to an earlier statement, you explained that the television of your conception involved no moving parts, no parts which had inertia. Will you please explain briefly what the difference is between having moving parts and having merely electron movement in terms of satisfactory operation?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It comes down to the nature in which television must be accomplished, that is, the picture must be made up of points in a plane, the points having varying intensities, and the picture must be broken down and transmitted one point at a time. Then a com

plete picture must be transmitted in a comparatively short fraction of time, say, 30 times per second, 30 images per second, so that if we break down the picture into half a million units and transmit those 30 times per second, we have some 15,000,000 points of light per second which must be transmitted.

Not only that, but the tearing down process at the transmitter and the building up process at the receiver, while occurring at this enormous rate, must be synchronized so that the receiver and transmitter are doing the same thing at the same time, and that tremendously high speed of transmission is practically synonymous, it has been in my mind, with the lack of mechanical movement. So that in our system the fundamental idea is to translate an optical image into an electronic discharge corresponding to that image, because the electronic image can be deflected and moved and operated on almost without any inertial effects, without any mechanical lag, and makes possible this tremendously high rate of information transfer without involving too complicated apparatus.

APPLICATION FOR PATENT COVERING BASIC IDEA OF FARNSWORTH

TELEVISION

Mr. DIENNER. And I understand that the patents and patent applications which you filed covered that concept and its application to television.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; the early application that was filed in the early part of 1927 covered the basic idea-it covered two basic ideas, conversion of the optical image into an electronic image and the scanning of that image in a linear fashion, much as a sheet of paper is typewritten-that is the generation of electrical impulses which transmit the image in a proper, orderly fashion.

Mr. DIENNER. Now in the course of your securing patent protection, did you encounter any interferences with other inventors?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; we have been involved in many interferences, the exact number I don't know, but since 1927 there has been to the best of my knowledge no time when we haven't been involved in interferences.

Mr. DIENNER. Approximately how many would you say?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I should say 20 or 25 in all.

Mr. DIENNER. And some of those are still active?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; there are some of the interferences that are still active.

Mr. DIENNER. Tell us about what the first contested interference cost you and your backers?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. One of our interferences, I think it was the second one, cost the company approximately $35,000, somewhat of that order, perhaps more and perhaps slightly less, but it was very close to $35,000.

Mr. DIENNER. Did you win it?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. We won that interference; yes.

Mr. DIENNER. And you had further interferences beyond that? Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; we have had, as I say, continual interferences in other matters.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. If I may ask, do any of these interferences involve the fundamental principles of your idea?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The interference to which I referred as costing $35,000 involved the basic idea of converting an optical image into an electrical image and forming a train of television signals to correspond to the electrical image.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. And that has been cleared up?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It has been cleared up.

Mr. PATTERSON. When was the first public demonstration of electronic television?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The first public demonstration was at the Franklin Institute in 1934. That demonstration lasted about 2 weeks, at which time we televised all kinds of scenes from outdoor pictures to pick-up of the parkway in Philadelphia, the transmission of night club scenes-in fact, we generally raised hob with the dignity of the Franklin Institute for a period of 10 days.

Mr. PATTERSON. You are talking about the Farnsworth Television Corporation.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. This was the Farnsworth television demonstration.

Mr. DIENNER. Have you been involved in any litigation in regard to the patents, I mean suits on patents aside from the interferences? Mr. FARNSWORTH. Not aside from the interferences.

Mr. DIENNER. The money which was put into that first contest that cost you $35,000 had to come out of your backing and not out of earnings, is that correct?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; there were no earnings. It means just that much money diverted from research.

Mr. DIENNER. So interference in your case was a very severe trial on the hopeful enterprise which had reached the commercial stage. Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes, it was. It meant getting along without some engineers, or stopping research on some particular phase in limiting our activities to the extent of $35,000.

Mr. DIENNER. It detracted from your work by compelling your attention to the contest, I assume.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; it also took time of myself and our patent department which could have well been devoted to the problem of development and filing of new applications instead of contesting interference proceedings.

Mr. DIENNER. About how long did that interference run, as you recall it?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. As I recall, it ran approximately 2 years. Mr. DIENNER. I believe you stated that you had developed various collateral inventions or byproducts of your main pursuit. Tell us briefly, if you can, what the general nature of those is.

(The chairman, Senator O'Mahoney, resumed the chair.) Mr. FARNSWORTH. They relate to electronic tubes that have been required for amplification or for other purposes, for carrying out the television process, and invariably where a new tool is developed which improves television, it has improved something else, some other field. These sensitive multiplier amplifiers are one type, the possibility of an inexpensive hard X-ray source is another, the translation of images from invisible light to visible light are another field; the electron microscope is a field which we have gone into somewhat.

Mr. DIENNER. Could you show us some samples of the tubes which you have produced and tell what they would do?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I have brought with me the two tubes that are important as they are evolved at present in the television transmitter, and I have in addition brought along three electron multiplier tubes, one evolved for moving picture and bean counting and lemon sorting, and the other for photometry where extreme sensitivity is necessary, and another that is important in generation of extremely short-wave length.

Mr. DIENNER. Would you like to see the tubes?

The CHAIRMAN. I am sure the committee would be interested in seeing them.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. This is the tube that I described that would detect a candle 10 miles away.

The CHAIRMAN. There is another tube in front of the candle, isn't there?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean to say this instrument of itself could be so operated that it could segregate the light of a candle 10 miles away?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It could tell you whether you had your hand in front of the candle or not. In other words, that merely indicates the lower amount of light that is necessary to show measurable effect. The CHAIRMAN. You would probably have to go out to Utah to get the open space to do it.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. You have to find some place to get rid of extraneous effect, but if you are pointing a telescope at a star you have those conditions.

This is a tube for production of extremely short waves. It is a true cold cathode tube. The electrons originate from no place. The electron multiplies so high that we don't need to find where the first waves come from.

Mr. PATTERSON. Will you at the proper time tell us some of the proper applications of this tube (referring to the first tube displayed)— the potential applications?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. This tube is the modern camera tube for direct pick-up. This tube promises-it hasn't done it as yet but theoretically it is possible to televise a scene with so small an amount of light on it that it can't be seen.

Mr. DIENNER. The image appears on the end of this "potato masher"?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No; this is the transmitting tube. The image is focused by means of lens onto the photoelectric screen which is a part of it.

Mr. DIENNER. In other words, that looks at the televisor equipment, so to speak.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; that corresponds to the film in the camera. This is a simple electron multiplier.

Mr. DIENNER. I believe Secretary Patterson asked what the potentialities of the first tube were that could detect the light of a candle 10 miles away.

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, that is right, Mr. Dienner, I asked Mr. Farnsworth if he would kindly tell us the practical applications of the first tube, and maybe some of the potential applications-that is the 10-mile candle tube, I will call it.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I can only indicate the field of use where this is now being applied. First, I will say that many of the fields where this is being used is confidential work of other inventors. In other words, we have furnished a tool here that they are very anxious to apply, but some of them don't tell us what it is for.

But in any field where an extremely small amount of light is to produce some useful effect, it can be used. You might use it for opening your garage door but you would only go to the trouble of using this tool if you wanted to flash your flashlight on it while you are half a mile away. In other words, a very much simpler tube would serve this purpose.

This little tube which I am passing around here is for talking-motion picture use, the same sort of tube except not so elaborate and that might be used for opening the doors of a railway station, in which case it would eliminate a costly head amplifier that goes along with it. This would directly operate the relays which open the doors.

And both of these tubes are photocells with the amplification within them and not on the outside. This particular tube is used for color comparator work, for monochrometers, for stellar photography, and all of the possible industrial applications that are included in those. Mr. DIENNER. That includes the lemon sorting and bean sorting? Mr. FARNSWORTH. We designed a particular model here for lemons. This tube is the early dissector tube, the fundamental idea of which was evolved when I was a kid in high school, but it is not by any means