Tube: The Invention of Television

By: David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher

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Synopsis: The colorful, definitive story of the inventors of television, the race for patents, and the vicious courtroom battles for markets. You're on Jeopardy, the category is popular science, and the answer is "In 1927 he transmitted the first image via an all-electronic TV system." If you don't know the question, you're not alone. In the half century since its commercial unveiling, television has become the undisputed master of communications media, revolutionizing the way postwar generations have viewed the world. Yet few know how television was created, who created it, or how it actually works. Tube is a riveting tale of technological and commercial adventure. Here is the story not of one mad scientist working alone in a laboratory but of a group of brilliant minds—iconoclasts with motivations that ranged from the idealistic zeal of invention to pure greed, each keeping an eye on the others in the race for fortune and glory. Here, too, is the progress of an invention—from laboratory prototypes that drew public laughter to the legal warfare for control of what would become an enormous market power. With devilish character sketches, compelling stories, and engaging, accessible scientific explanations, authors David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher take us through the advent of "living color" and beyond, concluding with a glance to the future of the medium and the impact of recent digital technologies.