– the inventor of television

John Logie Baird will always be remembered as the man who invented television.

While later scientific developments and refinements in technology may have dwarfed his original idea, John Logie Baird still deserves credit as television’s inventor.

It was his early experiments in a small laboratory he put together in the attic rooms of his London apartment that led to the first successful transmission of primitive, moving, gray-scale images. The details of the mechanisms would change later, but he was the first person to broadcast a live moving image.

He had not been alone in trying.

The German inventor, Arthur Korn, was close on his tail. In October 1906 he had broadcast a still, black-and-white image of a photograph. The broadcast was remarkable because it happened over a distance of over 1000 miles. It was an incredible achievement. But Korn never figured out how to send a live, moving image.

Another German, by name of Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, had invented a method of transmitting a fuzzy, static image.

The live moving image was the Holy Grail that these knights of science were seeking. It was John Logie Baird who would find it.

During the early 1920s, John Logie Baird had rooms and a small laboratory in the seaside town of Hastings, on the coast south of London in the UK.

It was in that laboratory he first projected, by televisual means, a moving silhouette across the walls.

During a later experiment he electrocuted himself. Tinkering late at night with one of his instruments he took a shock of over 1000 volts. Not only did this leave him shaken and lucky to be alive but it also blew out the fuse box in the entire building.

The landlord had been suspicious of the strange goings on in the curious Scottish gentleman’s apartment and he asked Baird to leave.

After that he moved to more modest accommodation in Soho, London. There is now a blue plaque on the building, commemorating his invention.

In his new apartment, John Logie Baird continued his research and experiments.

He knew he was close to a breakthrough and spent many hours late into the night refining and adjusting his apparatus.

Success smiled on him and on October 25th, 1925 he transmitted his first moving, gray-scale image. It was of a talking ventriloquist’s dummy.

This was the first time anyone achieved such feat. Unfortunately, he was alone in his laboratory at the time and his eyes were the only ones to witness it. He took photographs of the images.

Baird demonstrated his first apparatus, which he named “The Televisor” to an audience of enthralled witnesses on June 16th, 1926.

None of them imagined just what an impact his invention would have on the modern world.

The first images John Logie Baird broadcast were primitive compared to today’s technology.

The first images were poor in terms of clarity but no less astonishing for that. After his success that night in October, John Logie Baird invited a special audience of 50 people to squeeze into his attic laboratory to witness his invention.

Among the guests at this historic event were scientists from The Royal Institution and several press reporters.

Baird showed them the transmission apparatus and explained how the technology worked.

Then he transmitted live images of the same ventriloquist’s dummy and his assistant moving and speaking.

Tshat demonstration was only the beginning. John Logie Baird worked hard on further improving and developing his mechanisms.

He transmitted images over ever longer distances and made the first transatlantic broadcast in 1928. The pioneer of color television, too, he showed the first experimental color television images in 1928.

By 1930 he had developed a system for broadcasting simultaneous sound along with the images.

Television was born.