John Logie Baird
Bust of John Logie Baird in Helensburgh
Personal information
Name	John Logie Baird
Nationality	Scottish
Birth date	August 13, 1888
Birth place	Helensburgh, Argyll, Scotland
Date of death	June 14, 1946
Work
Significant projects	television

John Logie Baird (August 13, 1888 – June 14, 1946) was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first working television system. Helensburgh ( Baile Eilidh in Gaelic) is a Burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Events 3114 BC - According to the Lounsbury correlation the start of the Maya calendar. Year 1888 ( MDCCCLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Helensburgh ( Baile Eilidh in Gaelic) is a Burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Argyll, Archaically Argyle ( Earra-Ghàidheal in modern Gaelic) is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic Events 3114 BC - According to the Lounsbury correlation the start of the Maya calendar. Year 1888 ( MDCCCLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. An engineer is a person professionally engaged in a field of Engineering. Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic Although Baird's electromechanical system was eventually displaced by purely electronic systems (such as those of Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth), his early successes demonstrating working television broadcasts and his colour and cinema television work earn him a prominent place in television's invention. In Engineering, electromechanics combines the Sciences of Electromagnetism of Electrical engineering and mechanics. Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin (Владимир Козьмич Зворыкин ( July 30, 1889 - July 29, 1982) was a Russian-American Philo Taylor Farnsworth ( August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor For the band see Broadcast (band Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or Video signals which transmit The Television Technology can be divided along two lines those developments that depended upon both mechanical and electronic Principles and

Baird was born in Helensburgh, Argyll, Scotland. Helensburgh ( Baile Eilidh in Gaelic) is a Burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Argyll, Archaically Argyle ( Earra-Ghàidheal in modern Gaelic) is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. He was educated at Larchfield Academy (now part of Lomond School), Helensburgh; the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College (which later became the University of Strathclyde); and the University of Glasgow. Larchfield Academy (often called Larchfield School was a preparatory school for boys in Helensburgh, Scotland. Lomond School is an inde pendent co-educational day and boarding school in Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The University of Strathclyde (Oilthigh Srath Chluaidh is a university in Glasgow, Scotland. The University of Glasgow (Oilthigh Ghlaschu was founded in 1451 in Glasgow, Scotland and along with its contemporary institutions the University of St Andrews His degree course was interrupted by World War I and he never returned to graduate. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All

Television experiments

John Logie Baird with his "televisor", circa 1925.

The first known photograph of a moving image produced by Baird's "televisor", circa 1926.

Although the development of television was the result of work by many inventors, Baird is one of its foremost pioneers and made major advances in the field. He is generally credited with being the first person to produce a live, moving television image in halftones by reflected light. Halftone is the Reprographic technique that simulates Continuous tone imagery through the use of equally spaced dots of varying size Baird achieved this, where other inventors had failed, by obtaining a better photoelectric cell and improving the signal conditioning from the photocell and the video amplifier. In electronics signal conditioning means manipulating an Analogue signal in such a way that it meets the requirements of the next stage for further processing

In his first attempts to develop a working television system, Baird experimented with the Nipkow disk, and in February 1924 demonstrated to the Radio Times that a semi-mechanical analogue television system was possible by transmitting moving silhouette images, such as his fingers wiggling, in his London laboratory. A Nipkow disk (sometimes Anglicized as Nipkov disk also known as scanning disk, is a mechanical geometrically operating Image scanning device invented by Analog (or analogue) television encodes Television picture and sound information and transmits it as an Analog signal: one in which the London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Baird gave the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television at Selfridges department store in London in a three-week series of demonstrations beginning on March 25, 1925. Selfridges is a chain of Department stores in the United Kingdom.

On October 2, 1925 Baird successfully transmitted in his laboratory the first television picture with halftones: the head of a ventriloquist's dummy nicknamed "Stooky Bill" in a 30-line vertically scanned image, at five pictures a second. Events 1187 - Siege of Jerusalem: Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Halftone is the Reprographic technique that simulates Continuous tone imagery through the use of equally spaced dots of varying size Stooky Bill was the name given to the head of a Ventriloquist dummy that John Logie Baird used in his early experiments to transmit a televised image between ^[1] Baird went downstairs and fetched an office worker, 20-year-old William Edward Taynton, to see what a human face would look like, and Taynton became the first person to be televised in full tonal range. ^[2]

First public demonstrations

On January 26, 1926 Baird repeated the transmission for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street in the Soho district of London. Events 1340 - King Edward III of England is declared King of France. Year 1926 ( MCMXXVI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research based in London. The Times is a daily national Newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register. Frith Street is in the Soho area of London, England. To the north is Soho Square and to the south is Shaftesbury Avenue. This article is about an area of Manhattan, New York City. For the area in London UK see Soho. By this time he had improved the scan rate to 12. 5 pictures a second. It was the world's first demonstration of a true television system, one that could broadcast live moving images with tone graduation.

He demonstrated the world's first colour transmission on July 3, 1928, using scanning discs at the transmitting and receiving ends with three spirals of apertures, each spiral with a filter of a different primary colour; and three light sources at the receiving end, with a commutator to alternate their illumination. Events 324 - Battle of Adrianople Constantine I defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium. Year 1928 ( MCMXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. That same year he also demonstrated stereoscopic television. In 1932, he was the first to demonstrate ultra-short wave transmission.

Broadcasting

In 1927, Baird transmitted a long-distance television signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow; Baird transmitted the world's first long-distance television pictures to the Central Hotel at Glasgow Central Station. Glasgow (ˈglæzgoʊ is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom ^[3] He then set up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd, which in 1928 made the first transatlantic television transmission, from London to Hartsdale, New York, and the first television programme for the BBC. Hartsdale is a hamlet and a census-designated place (CDP located in the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County New York. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous In November 1929, Baird and Bernard Natan established France's first television company, Télévision-Baird-Natan. Bernard Natan (1886–1942 (born Natan Tannenzaft) was a bisexual Franco - Romanian Film director and Actor of the 1920s Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic He televised the first live transmission of the Epsom Derby in 1931. The Derby Stakes, known colloquially as The Derby or internationally as the Epsom Derby, is considered one of the most prestigious flat Thoroughbred horse races He demonstrated a theatre television system, with a screen two feet by five feet, in 1930 at the London Coliseum, Berlin, Paris, and Stockholm. The Coliseum Theatre (also known as the London Coliseum) is on St Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city ('stɔkhɔlm is Sweden 's Capital and its largest City. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the parliament, and the ^[4] By 1939 he had improved his theatre projection system to televise a boxing match on a screen 15 ft by 12 ft (4. 6 m by 3. 7 m).

From 1929 to 1932, the BBC transmitters were used to broadcast television programmes using the 30-line Baird system, and from 1932-35, the BBC also produced the programmes in their own studio at 16 Portland Place. In November 1936, the BBC began alternating Baird 240-line transmissions with EMI's electronic scanning system which had recently been improved to 405-lines after a merger with Marconi. The BBC ceased broadcasts with the Baird system in February 1937, due mostly to the immobility of the Baird system's cameras.

Baird's television systems were replaced by the electronic television system developed by the newly-formed company EMI-Marconi under Isaac Shoenberg, which had access to patents developed by Vladimir Zworykin and RCA. The Marconi Company Ltd was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company (sometimes presented as Wireless Sir Isaac Shoenberg ( March 1, 1880 - January 25, 1963) was an electronic engineer born in Russia who was best known for his role in history Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin (Владимир Козьмич Зворыкин ( July 30, 1889 - July 29, 1982) was a Russian-American RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986 Similarly, Philo T. Farnsworth's electronic "Image Dissector" camera was available to Baird's company via a patent-sharing agreement. Philo Taylor Farnsworth ( August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor However, the Image Dissector camera was found to be lacking in light sensitivity, requiring excessive levels of illumination.

Baird made many contributions to the field of electronic television after mechanical systems had taken a back seat. In 1939, he showed colour television using a cathode ray tube in front of which revolved a disc fitted with colour filters, a method taken up by CBS and RCA in the United States. Cathode rays (also called an electron beam or e-beam) are streams of Electrons observed in Vacuum tubes i CBS Broadcasting Inc ( CBS) is an American radio and Television network. On August 16, 1944 he gave the world's first demonstration of a fully electronic colour television display. Events 1384 - The Hongwu Emperor of Ming China, Emperor Dong hears a case of a couple who tore paper money bills while fighting Year 1944 ( MCMXLIV) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. His 600-line colour system used triple interlacing, using six scans to build each picture. For the method of incrementally displaying Raster graphics, see Interlace (bitmaps. ^[5] In 1943, the Hankey Committee was appointed to oversee the resumption of television broadcasts after the war. Baird persuaded them to make plans to adopt his proposed 1000-line Telechrome electronic colour system as the new post-war broadcast standard. The picture quality on this system would have been comparable to today's HDTV. The Hankey Committee's plan lost all momentum partly due to the challenges of post-war reconstruction. The monochrome 405-line standard remained in place until 1985 in some areas, and it was three decades until the introduction of the 625-line system in 1964 and (PAL) colour in 1967. PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is a colour -encoding system used in Broadcast television systems in large parts of the world

Other inventions

Some of Baird's early inventions were not fully successful. In his twenties he tried to create diamonds by heating graphite and shorted out Glasgow's electricity supply. In Mineralogy, diamond is the allotrope of carbon where the carbon atoms are arranged in The Mineral graphite, as with Diamond and Fullerene, is one of the Allotropes of carbon. Not long afterwards Baird perfected a glass razor; it was completely rust-resistant, but it shattered. Inspired by pneumatic tires he had a go at pneumatic shoes, but his prototype contained semi-inflated balloons which burst. He also invented a thermal undersock (the Baird undersock), which was actually moderately successful. Baird suffered from cold feet, and after a number of trials, he found that an extra layer of cotton inside the sock provided warmth. ^[6]

Baird's numerous other developments demonstrated his particular talent at invention. He was a visionary and began to dabble with electricity. In 1928, he developed an early video recording device, which he dubbed Phonovision. Video is the technology of electronically capturing, Recording, processing storing transmitting and reconstructing a sequence of Still images Phonovision, an experimental process for recording a television signal on phonograph records was developed in the late 1920s in London by Scottish television pioneer John Logie Baird The system consisted of a Phonodisc, which was a 78rpm record that could play a 30-line video signal. His other developments were in fiber-optics, radio direction finding, infrared night viewing and radar. An optical fiber (or fibre) is a Glass or Plastic fiber that carries Light along its length Infrared ( IR) radiation is Electromagnetic radiation whose Wavelength is longer than that of Visible light, but shorter than that of Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range altitude direction or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as Aircraft, ships There is discussion about his exact contribution to the development of radar, for his wartime defence projects have never been officially acknowledged by the British government. According to Malcolm Baird, his son, what is known is that in 1926 Baird filed a patent for a device that formed images from reflected radio waves, a device remarkably similar to radar, and that he was in correspondence with the British government at the time. Much of the information regarding Baird's work in this area is just beginning to emerge.

He built what was to become the world's first working television set by purchasing an old hatbox and a pair of scissors, some darning needles, a few bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and a great deal of sealing wax and glue. ^[6]

There is a working model of the Baird televisor in the London Science Museum.

Last years

From December 1944 until his death two years later, Baird lived at a house in Station Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, immediately north of the station itself. ^[7] Baird died in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England on June 14, 1946 after a stroke in February of that year. Bexhill-on-Sea (often simply Bexhill) is a town and Seaside resort in the county of East Sussex, in the south of England, within the Sussex is a historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The old house was demolished in 2007 and the new block of flats on the site will be called "Baird Court".

Legacy

TV now spans the globe and is the world's most popular form of entertainment, offering multiple channels covering all sorts of subjects, though it has been suggested that Baird might not have altogether approved.

In the Channel 5 programme Don't Get Me Started, aired on August 29, 2006, presenter Selina Scott complained about the falling standards of British TV with such shows as Big Brother and other "reality" programmes. Events 708 - Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708) Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Selina Scott (b 13 May 1951 in Scarborough, Yorkshire) is a British newsreader, Journalist and Television presenter. Big Brother is a Reality television series broadcast in the United Kingdom and Malcolm Baird said in an interview that had his father known how TV would turn out in sixty years time, he would have dropped it and turned to other inventions.

The Australian Television awards are named the Logies in his honour. The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards which have been presented annually since 1959

A feature film script on Baird's life is currently being prepared by the Scottish scriptwriter James McCreadie.

Notes

See also

• Logie Awards — Australia television
• University of Strathclyde
• History of television

Further reading

• Baird, John Logie, Television and Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird. The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards which have been presented annually since 1959 For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. The University of Strathclyde (Oilthigh Srath Chluaidh is a university in Glasgow, Scotland. The Television Technology can be divided along two lines those developments that depended upon both mechanical and electronic Principles and Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 2004. Mercat Press is an Imprint of the Edinburgh, Scotland -based Publishing company Birlinn Limited. ISBN 1-84183-063-1
• Kamm, Antony, and Malcolm Baird, John Logie Baird: A Life. Edinburgh: NMS Publishing, 2002. ISBN 1-901663-76-0
• McArthur, Tom, and Peter Waddell, The Secret Life of John Logie Baird. London: Hutchinson, 1986. ISBN 0-09-158720-4.
• McLean, Donald F. , Restoring Baird's Image. The Institute of Electrical Engineers, 2000. ISBN 0-85296-795-0.
• Rowland, John, The Television Man: The Story of John Logie Baird. New York: Roy Publishers, 1967.
• Tiltman, Ronald Frank, Baird of Television. New York: Arno Press, 1974. (Reprint of 1933 ed. ) ISBN 0-405-06061-0.

External links

• The Baird Television Website
• Baird on DigitalCentury.com
• Mechanical TV: Baird Television
• Baird bio on BBC site
• John Logie Baird biography at BFI Screenonline
• How to build a Baird televisor - also contains many detailed references to Baird's history
• John Logie Baird - Gizmohighway Technology Guide
• Narrow Bandwidth Television Association
• Phonovision
• Blog describing many missing UK Television programmes - containing entries about Baird 30-line and 240 -line broadcasts
• John Logie Baird biography at Virtual Scotland
• Television Apparatus, US patent, filed 1926.
• Method of and Means for Transmitting Signals, US patent for Baird's "Noctovision" infrared television system, filed 1927.
• Television Apparatus and the Like, US patent for Baird's color television system, filed 1929 (in UK, 1928).