Who invented the mechanical television? Google doodle marks 90th
anniversary of first TV demo
The Daily Mirror, 26 January 2016 by Sophie Curtis
Television has come a long way in 90 years. Today’s
google doodle reminds us how it all began.
Today, it is hard to imagine what life would be like
without TV, and yet it is only 90 years since Scottish
engineer John Logie Baird first demonstrated the
technology to a gathering of scientists in in central
London.
Where would we be without television?
Baird, born in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, was one of
several inventors trying to work out how to send moving pictures over radio waves during the early
1920s.
In 1925, he gave the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television at
Selfridges department store in London.
However, the real breakthrough [svolta] came in October 1925 when Baird achieved television
pictures with light and shade (known as greyscale), so it was possible to make out much more detail
- such as people's facial features.
He demonstrated the new technology to 50 members of the Royal Institution and a journalist
from The Times in his laboratory on Frith Street, London, on 26
January 1926 – 90 years ago today.
The visitors were shown a transmitting machine, known as a
"televisor", consisting of a large wooden revolving disc containing
lenses, behind which was a revolving shutter [otturatore] and a lightsensitive cell.
He explained that, by means of the shutter and lens disc, an image of
the people or objects in front of the machine could be made to pass
over the light-sensitive cell at high speed.
The current in the cell varied in proportion to the light falling on it,
John Logie Baird
and this varying current was transmitted to a receiver.
The image transmitted was faint and often blurred [sfuocata], and measured only 3.5 x 2 inches, but
the demonstration proved that it was possible to broadcast [tramettere] live moving images, and
therefore went down in history.
In 1927, his television was demonstrated over
438 miles of telephone line between London
and Glasgow, and a year later Baird achieved
the first transatlantic television transmission
between London and New York.
He is also credited as the inventor of both the
first publicly demonstrated colour television
Baird with his television apparatus
system in 1928, and the first purely electronic
colour television picture tube.
Baird's early technological successes and his role in the practical introduction of broadcast television
for home entertainment have earned him a prominent place in television's history.
It is therefore fitting that such a pivotal moment in his career - the ninetieth anniversary of his first
television demonstration - has been marked with a special Google doodle.
The doodle depicts the televisor, along with an animated portrait of Baird himself, and a Union Jack
in the background.