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    Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
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    Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
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    Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
    Ebook384 pages5 hours

    Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television

    By Evan I. Schwartz

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    About this ebook

    In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time.

    Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea,by the age of twenty Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.

    Based on original research, including interviews with Farnsworth family members, The Last Lone Inventor is the story of the epic struggle between two equally passionate adversaries whose clash symbolized a turning point in the culture of creativity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061856143
    Author

    Evan I. Schwartz

    EVAN I. SCHWARTZ is a former award-winning editor at Business Week and the author of The Last Lone Inventor, named one of the seventy-five best business books of all time by Fortune. The idea for Finding Oz came to him while reading Baum’s classic to his daughter at bedtime.

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    Reviews for Last Lone Inventor

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    • 4/5
      I love studying the history of science and seldom has a book on this topic read more like a novel. The young genius of Philo T. Farnsworth seems to be overflowing with ideas almost from birth. The timing is right for he comes of age just as the information age is being transformed from the print medium that ruled the nineteenth century to audio and video that will rule the twentieth century. Many men have laid claim to the title "The Father of Television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Farnsworth ended up a footnote in history yet he was the first to demonstrate an electronic process for scanning, transmitting and receiving moving images, a discovery that changed the way we live. Unfortunately Farnsworth, the "lone inventor", comes up against David Sarnoff the media mogul who uses his control over radio leverage the same control over the beginnings of television. Their battle is epic and Evan Schwartz tells the story so well that it kept me interested both through the discoveries and the disaster (for Farnsworth) that followed. Adding to my enjoyment was the opportunity to see a production of Aaron Sorkin's play, The Farnsworth Invention, based in part on Farnsworth's life.