# Invention of the telephone **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 13, 2025, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525 "2025-03-13T13:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2025, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/41 "2025-03-14T22:38:16Z")
Even the Baird-Farnsworth debate isn’t quite right. Alan Campbell-Swinton of Scotland theorized using CRT tubes in both the camera and receiver in 1908, but later called the results of his experiments “disappointing.” Vladimir Zworkin developed a CRT receiver and mechanical transmitter in 1911 (predating Baird,) but his work languished until he came to the U.S. in the 1920s. He couldn’t develop a practical electronic camera-receiver system until 1928. Bell Labs experimented with all-electronic video in 1922. Baird introduced his mechanical method in 1926. Kálmán Tihanyi of Hungary was working on improving the camera tube in 1924, and was granted a patent in 1926. Max Dieckmann and Rudolf Hell applied for a patent for the image dissector camera tube in 1925, but although the patent was granted in 1927, they were never able to produce a practical version. Farnsworth had been working with the image dissector concept since 1921, introduced his working model in 1927. His great leap forward was developing electronic scanning, rather than the mechanical scanning used by Baird and the other early inventors. TL;DR a lot of people “invented” television, but only Baird and Farnsworth were able to get the invention out of their laboratories and into working models. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2025, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/42 "2025-03-14T22:56:59Z")
ref the Patriots ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2025, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/43 "2025-03-14T23:13:23Z")
The book I read about the history of television was _Tube_ by David Fisher. It gets a bit technical, but filled in some of the holes in my understanding of what happened. It helps if you have some electrical engineering background. (I bought it used from the local library’s book sale.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2025, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/44 "2025-03-14T23:26:12Z")
I did graduate work in communications in 1972. It’s incredible to do the math and realize that year was closer to the first steps on television than to today. Minor nitpick. Farnsworth had an idea in high school that he sketched out, but he couldn’t do anything with it until 1927. That he had the idea is undoubtedly impressive, but lots of people have ideas and don’t get credit for them. Same with some of your other dates. People get tagged with very different levels of achievement. There’s seldom a good middle ground between a popular work and a Ph.D. dissertation. Your list also hits at the point that people all over the world have inventive genius and therefore contribute to national pride that often overwhelms factual definitions. Everybody wants a piece of the action. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/45 "2025-03-15T02:14:32Z")
Philo Farnsworth may or may not deserve to be considered the inventor of television, but I think we can all agree that his descendant Hubert Farnsworth was indeed one of history’s greatest inventors. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/46 "2025-03-15T02:24:16Z")
The Fing-Longer would have been the greatest invention of all mankind. If only Hubert Farnsworth had actually invented it. A man can dream… ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/47 "2025-03-15T02:44:37Z")
Did he have the idea in high school? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/48 "2025-03-15T02:49:07Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > The book I read about the history of television was _Tube_ by David Fisher. That’s the book I was trying to think of so I could check the facts, but it didn’t have “television” in the title when I tried to look it up. Darn. And I swear your post wasn’t there I when posted earlier and replied directly to post above me, which was by Kent\_Clark. That seems to have happened to me several times recently, meaning either that Discourse is going wonky or my head is. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/49 "2025-03-15T03:23:46Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > But the legend says “they were just bicycle mechanics, who suddenly invented an airplane, to the great shock of the entire world.” > > That always bugged me. Because, see, let me tell ya somethin’–I worked in a bike shop, and I’m a pretty good bicycle mechanic. > But me, I would never try to build an airplane…So I always wondered how the Wright Brothers did. One factor that they learned in their bicycle work was the idea of banking. Lots of others who were trying for powered flight focused on wing design and engine power, and thought of piloting as something two-dimensional, like a ship. The Wrights’ insight was the need to find a way to control an unstable aircraft in three dimensions, and realised that banking, just like a bicycle going around a turn, was a possible way to get to that control. That, and wing-warping as a means of control, inspired by fidgetting with a bycicle inner tube, were two of their innovations that were essential to their success. See the section on the wikipedia article on “Ideas about control”: > **[Wright brothers | Ideas about control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Ideas_about_control)** > > Despite Lilienthal's fate, the brothers favored his strategy: to practice gliding in order to master the art of control before attempting motor-driven flight. The death of British aeronaut Percy Pilcher in another hang gliding crash in October 1899 only reinforced their opinion that a reliable method of pilot control was the key to successful – and safe – flight. At the outset of their experiments they regarded control as the unsolved third part of "the flying problem". The other two parts – wing... ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/50 "2025-03-15T14:10:50Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > But the legend says “they were just bicycle mechanics, who suddenly invented an airplane, to the great shock of the entire world.” And Einstein was “just a patent clerk who came up with Special Relativity”. No. He was a physics graduate who took a job as a patent clerk to have time to work on his ideas. Often these legends are distortions of history that try to make the result seem more impressive. I’m not sure where they come from - probably “telephone game” type distortions in the retelling. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/51 "2025-03-15T19:31:16Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > It was my understanding that televison was not really practical before Farnsworth as the picture quality of mechanical television was low, and watching for a prolonged period caused severe headaches. Yep, you are correct. Other inventors had sent images also. But nothing would have come of it other than as a curiosity. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/52 "2025-03-15T19:52:04Z")
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a limited TV series dramatisation of the Wright Brothers’ story. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/53 "2025-03-15T20:10:27Z")
My only comment on the television invention debate is that anyone named Philo Farnsworth damned sure ought to get credited with inventing _something_. That’s a name right out of Hollywood’s Mad Scientist trope playbook. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/54 "2025-03-15T20:58:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That’s a name right out of Hollywood’s Mad Scientist trope playbook. Sorry, Vladimir Zworkin beats anyone named Philo. And for that matter, Nikola Tesla beats them all. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/55 "2025-03-15T21:09:16Z")
What’s really weird is that there’s never been a Hollywood biopic of them. You can’t get more of a real American success story. (IMDB lists one extremely obscure independent firm, with no plotline, reviews, and Orville being played by a woman.) ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/56 "2025-03-15T21:14:36Z")
I believe this was made in Hollywood, or at least the production company was based there: > **[The Winds of Kitty Hawk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winds_of_Kitty_Hawk)** > > The Winds of Kitty Hawk is a 1978 American made-for-television biographical film directed by E. W. Swackhamer about the Wright brothers and their invention of the first successful powered heavier-than-air flying machine, the Wright Flyer. It's a tribute to the brothers and was broadcast on December 17, 1978, the 75th anniversary of their famous 1903 first aeroplane flight. It is one of several made-for-television films about historical people in aviation produced in the 1970s, including The Am Th... ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/57 "2025-03-15T21:16:17Z")
I was just about to post that I have a vague memory of a TV movie from the 70s, but now I think that’s likely the one. I’m sure it’s very 70s and could do with an eight episode TV series spruce-up. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/58 "2025-03-15T21:20:58Z")
The usual definition of a Hollywood film explicitly excludes made-for-television movies. That may be cracking in this era of streaming, but was definitely, pun intended, true in 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/59 "2025-03-15T22:16:59Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > No. He was a physics graduate who took a job as a patent clerk to have time to work on his ideas. The Wright brothers really didn’t finish high school, though. I think it’s important to distinguish two different concepts. There’s a certain strain of anti-intellectualism that looks to cases like the Wright brothers as an example to bolster the case that you don’t need books and knowledge and all that stuff to accomplish things, just good old common sense and grit. That’s a fairly poisonous view and wrong to boot, since the Wright brothers took a highly scientific approach and learned as much as they could about aeronautics in the process. Closely related but distinct, however, is anti-credentialism, which is wholesome and good: the idea that you don’t need some piece of paper that indicates mastery of a subject. You can just go and master it. And the Wright brothers _do_ bolster the case for anti-credentialism. If the world was shocked that a couple of bicycle mechanics could invent a working airplane, it’s because they were suffering under the illusion that the only way to learn this stuff is to get a degree, or maybe climb some bureaucratic ladder, as opposed to actually doing the concrete steps needed to gain knowledge, such as running experiments. Which isn’t to say there isn’t value in going to school, either. But “going to school” and “getting an education” aren’t synonymous, despite being used that way almost all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525/60 "2025-03-15T22:34:30Z")
There’s also the “great man” approach to history which I think has deeply poisoned our understanding of how things come to happen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/invention-of-the-telephone/1015525.md?page=4)