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

Rating:
Summary: Gripping, Interesting American Fable
Review: Another great book from a trusted guide to the undercurrents of America -- technology, culture, class, greed -- and two of the pillars that tower over this country, namely television and the corporation.

With historical accuracy, thrilling storytelling and his trademark prose style and humor, Schwartz has delivered a book that is both fun to read and hugely illuminating.

Rating:
Summary: Quick read, and honest about the prospects of invention
Review: Evan Schwartz has done an excellent job in creating a fast read without the depth of A Beautiful Mind, but interesting nonetheless. His subject is after all a more straightforward individual than John Nash, although Schwartz, like Sylvia Nasar, does explore some of the darker corners of Farnsworth's personality.

Schwartz refreshingly does not engage in positivistic technological whoop-de-doo about the possibility of reviving the status of the lone inventor. During the dot.com boom there was some loose talk about the possibility of the better mousetrap but it is clear that the administered world, that Farnsworth's nemesis in the book (David Sarnoff of RCA) helped to install in the 1920s, makes technological innovation, by the lone inventor, the exception and not the rule.

Schwartz also does an excellent job of balancing the two very different (yet strangely alike) personalities of Philo T. Farnsworth versus "General" Sarnoff, who more or less browbeat Dwight Eisenhower into making him a General for Sarnoff's admirable war record.

For Philo T. Farnsworth belonged more to the 1890s than the administered, corporate world of the 1920s. His name is somewhat odd in that (like Edward G. Nilges) it confesses an unbroken attachment to a family-of-origin, and a need to at one and the same time identify with a clan, yet precisely identify oneself as an individual within the clan.

Sarnoff's name is cooler-sounding and more down-to-business to the modern and indeed the administered ear, and far more than old Philo, Sarnoff was "skilled" (if that is indeed the word) in manipulating, not technical and scientific realities but his relations with his fellow men.

Farnsworth was of course no slouch in the PR department, but Sarnoff was more aware that the effect of illusion could be self-reinforcing, and that Sarnoff could USE the technology (and let others tinker with the technology), as in Schwartz' example of Sarnoff's dog and pony show at the 1939 World's Fair.

Technicians may cry foul, but the unavoidable fact that one technology builds upon another MEANS that the administered world (in Farnsworth's time, of cheap radio buff magazines, in ours, of cheap personal computers) was brought into being by social engineers *malgre lui* like Sarnoff.

But one cannot give old-fashioned credit to the Sarnoffs and the Gates when one admits this fact, and the reason for this is the inseperability of the social illusion they created, and the feeling the rest of us that we have been subtly horn-swoggled.

At the 1939 World's Fair, young David Gerlenter was very impressed by what in fact had little relationship to reality but the illusion created by the Fair urged him not only to participate in the creation of the world of "tomorrow", it also made them enthusiastically not question its ideological presumptions.

Missing, of necessity, in Evan Schwartz' quick read is another (indirect) employee of David Sarnoff, and this is my cherubic but rather gloomy old pal Theodore Adorno.

[The frequency of mention of Adorno may indicate to the unwashed a stalker-like obsession although Adorno died in 1970, or it may indicate that I am on to something Big.]

Adorno was indirectly retained at the Princeton Radio Research project in the 1930s by an RCA funded group that was charged, by Sarnoff, with making radio more high-class, and Schwartz describes Sarnoff's own tastes, which were in the lingo of the day, high-brow.

Walter Damrosch, not "Damrouch" as it is in the book, was a popular classical conductor of the 1930s and performed, as Schwartz recounts, at an RCA celebration. Sarnoff hoped that Adorno, et al., would show him how to market, over radio and possibly television, "quality" programming.

Being an intellectual cousin of Farnsworth in the very different but in fact equally demanding field of sociology, Adorno seems to have disruptively wanted to first theorize the impact of Edison's, Marconi's, and Farnsworth's creations on the listener. Adorno, in a truly pragmatic spirit, wanted to take the material basis into account, but was forestalled from doing so.

Adorno was aware, ten years before the appearance of McLuhan, that the medium, in particular its necessary limitations, might become the message. He theorized that the limitations might be necessary using, not the Aristotelean or Boolean logic familiar to a Farnsworth, but a 'dialectic' call and response logic in which we might actually demand, in the case of music reproduction, the very experience that denies, excludes, an older, and possibly richer, experience.

Of course, the engineer then and now is engaged in finding ways to satisfy demands, and not prove their mutual exclusion, which is why theoretical sociologists are scorned by engineers. But Boolean logic's possibility happens to rest on the bare possibility of knowledge, and one of Farnsworth's limitations was that this blinded him to the importance of PR over and above valid patents.

But rare indeed is the engineer with this range of vision, and as a result, engineers, in reading this book, might be subtly encouraged to POLARIZE the urban and cosmopolite world of Sarnoff versus the more down-to-earth, nuts and bolts, ham and ham sandwich world of an Edison or Farnsworth. With the result that such men grow old without grace, and the ultimate justification of the technology is biased towards destruction.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and well-executed
Review: For science and invention-history buffs, this is a no-brainer, but even the non-technoid layperson will find this a fascinating and fast-paced read. The author does an excellent job of presenting the key characters' development and motiviation, interspersing very fluidly the important biographical details of both Farnsworth and Sarnoff with appropriate and necessary background information on the technological evolution that eventually drew their lives together.

Schwartz achieves an entertaining balance between the social history of television and radio, the scientific minutae of the early growth of these technologies, and the personal lives of the individuals involved. Without becoming self-righteous or dogmatic, he lets the reader know where he stands on the issue of scientific integrity versus commercial exploitation, and succeeds in proving his underlying thesis that Farnsworth was truly one of the last of his breed. Finely researched and tightly written, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and well-executed
Review: For science and invention-history buffs, this is a no-brainer, but even the non-technoid layperson will find this a fascinating and fast-paced read. The author does an excellent job of presenting the key characters' development and motiviation, interspersing very fluidly the important biographical details of both Farnsworth and Sarnoff with appropriate and necessary background information on the technological evolution that eventually drew their lives together.

Schwartz achieves an entertaining balance between the social history of television and radio, the scientific minutae of the early growth of these technologies, and the personal lives of the individuals involved. Without becoming self-righteous or dogmatic, he lets the reader know where he stands on the issue of scientific integrity versus commercial exploitation, and succeeds in proving his underlying thesis that Farnsworth was truly one of the last of his breed. Finely researched and tightly written, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Rating:
Summary: Great story, but misses a few important relevancies
Review: I loved this book, the story of yet another unsung hero, the lone wolf pioneer, oblivious to the world's thieves, fighting to realize a dream, then getting ripped off for it at the moment of success. Ask yourself: who invented the lightbulb, the telephone, the radio, the airplane? You know the answer. (It might not actually be fully correct, but you can certainly come up with an appropriate name.) Now, who invented television? That is, the means of converting a moving image into a stream of electrons. Stumped? Some people know the names of Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth, but not many. This book is the extremely fascinating story of Philo T. Farnsworth (what a name!) and how one man, David Sarnoff, succeeded in placing in the mind of the public the idea that television was created by him, as the leader of RCA/NBC. Zworykin worked for Sarnoff, and between the two totally ripped off the ideas and even the patents behind the creation of TV. While Farnsworth did receive a minimal amount of credit and some money during his life, in the end his name was buried as far as the public was concerned.

Unfortunately, the author seems oblivious to the fact of similar rip-offs occurring right amongst some of the minor characters of the story, in particular Edison AND Marconi stealing, and trying to keep Tesla from receiving, the credit he deserved for lighting and radio discoveries. Everyone has their own axe to grind, but the fact is if you dig deep enough, there are probably stories like this surrounding every great technological advance.

Anyway, if you at all like the genre, this book is bound to become a classic for you. It's also a great cautionary tale regarding the weaknesses of the patent system as practiced in the USA.

Rating:
Summary: Farnsworth's Quadruple Victory
Review: In The Last Lone Inventor, Evan I. Schwarz shares the birth, growth and maturity of a great mind, and lends some insight into the television industry in its seminal stage.

To borrow against another famous inventor's metaphor, Schwarz effectively captures the wonder of inspiration, which is but a small percentage of the process of invention as a whole. From Filo Farnsworth's potato field vision as a mere grammer school teen, to his post-war struggles against competing (and much better financed) visionaries, we see that he posessed one of those rare intellects that is capable of seeing solutions long before "normal" technically inclined people, and with far greater clarity. Farnsworth handily out-classed almost all his TV pioneer contemporaries.

Schwarz' story is engaging and hard to put down until the final chapters, where the story loses its momentum a bit (the author provides follow-up on Farnsworth's less spectacular later years, which is interesting but not as intriguing as the discovery of electronic television). The book is also a fine "period piece," in that it reveals picturesque vignettes of the subject's personal life outside the laboratory. And to the author's point (and hence the book's title), it illustrates well the struggles faced by a poorly funded independent inventor, as compared to a well-paid corporate lab engineer working with far better resources.

Getting back to Edison's metaphor, while the book amply portrays inspiration, it (wisely perhaps for commercial reasons) ignors much of the "perspiration" that lies between a visionary and his grail. To have explored this deeply would have rendered mundane the main theme of breakneck competitive struggle. Nevertheless, the reader does not grasp the full impact of Farnsworth's triumph until this element is considered -- Farnsworth's success was far more spectacular than even Schwarz reveals!

The shortfall can be filled with minor difficulty by the lay reader, and with greater ease by those already familiar with analog electronic communication (i.e., early radio and television). In essence it is this: Normally a lab striving to invent a system of multiple components would do so in an evolutionary process. For example, given the existence of a complete, functional television transmitter, receiver, and picture display apparatus, it would be relatively simple to create, for the first time and with no existing technology from which to begin, a functional television camera. In fact, given that any three of these major elements were already functional, it would be far easier to create any one of the other three. But try to create any two, with just the remaining two from which to base experiments, and the task is exponentially more difficult -- how does the inventor tweak any part of the aparatus when he cannot be sure ALL the other elements are 100% functional? But now consider starting out with ALL FOUR elements missing! That Farnsworth leveraged his creation of electronic television from the period's crude radio technology alone, with no outside help to speak of, and in just a few years, is staggering. The "persperation" he (and by proximity, his helpers) endured must have been terrific!

So buy this book. Evan Schwarz does a great job entertaining readers of both genders with a story of inspiration, romance and above all, genesis -- the creation of a wondrous invention that has impacted all of civilization. The Filo Farnsworth story ranks, in some ways, right up there with the United States' moon shot in 1969 (if my last paragraph made the point, be sure to read books about that great achievement too -- you'll be even more awed).

Rating:
Summary: Why can't we learn from the past?
Review: Looking for precedence in the desktop PC operating system wars? The battle for television standard supremacy is exhibit ABC!

Similar to Microsoft's grab for OS hegemony in the 1980s and 1990s, RCA outmaneuvered archrivals AT&T, Westinghouse, Philco to capture the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of the American public. And while the battle was fought by the best minds Corporate America could muster, it was a lone inventor by the name of Philo T Farnsworth who gave RCA all it could handle on the innovation front, but was eventually outgunned by RCA honcho and master marketeer David Sarnoff, who perfectly played the courts to outlast the brilliant but business-challenged entrepreneur.

In fact, the story is reminiscent of IBM's early 1980s investigation for a PC operating system. Computer geeks might remember that at that time Digital Research's CP/M was considered the best of breed PC operating system, and Big Blue was desperate to have it power its fledgling IBM PC. IBM execs, however, couldn't get a meeting with CP/M's inventor Gary Kildall (IBM had arranged to meet him at home, but Kildall was off flying his plane, leaving his wife Dorothy to negotiate a deal but she wouldn't sign a non-disclosure agreement.). So Big Blue sought alternatives, eventually striking a deal with Microsoft for an operating system the then infant company didn't yet have rights to (which was eventually called MS-DOS). And the rest, as they say ... is history!

Sarnoff bluffed, licensed and marketed his way into the television space. Farnsworth like Kildall, was almost too bright for his own good. He thought the game would be decided by the technical merits of his product. That wasn't the case then -- nor is it now. It's not who invents the better mousetrap that wins; it's who defines, controls and spins the battle to suit his ends. It's marketing muscle not technological superiority -- as Microsoft has proven time and again.

Kildall died battered and bruised (physically and emotionally) not unlike Farnsworth who passed on as a penniless and forgotten man.

I could easily see this book turned into a major motion picture: Johnnie Depp in the Farnsworth role; Bob Hoskins as Sarnoff. But don't wait for the movie. This book is a page-turner -- you won't be disappointed. Farnsworth, like Kildall, can't be forgotten. It's books like this that guarantee he won't.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging, quick, entertaining read
Review: More party conversation facts that you can expect to collect from 99/100 other books. A great story, well told. Professionally and rigorously researched. Fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written story of brilliant inventor vs. big corporation
Review: This is a fascinating story. I hadn't heard of Philo T. Farnsworth before this book, and as many others, believed that David Sarnoff invented TV. The story of Sarnoff's deliberate attempt to grab the glory and commercial reward of television using every legal and marketing trick at RCA's disposal is surprising and almost unbelievable. The account definitely dispelled my (obviously naïve) belief that individuals who create great inventions are richly rewarded for their contributions. Yet I still found it a generally balanced account - I came away thinking that David Sarnoff was an aggressive, driven, ruthless competitor, but with an appreciation of his accomplishments. Evan Schwartz's writing is clear and enjoyable, and the co-operation of Pem Farnsworth added depth and detail that really brought Philo Farnsworth's tribulations to life.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Readable US-centric Farnsworth vs Sarnoff book
Review: This is a story of good vs evil, of innocent lone inventor (not 'last' surely?!) versus the best (commercially) and worst (morally) of corporate USA. It is very much an American story for an American audience, and reads as yet another vehicle for the Farnsworth family's cry for recognition.

Schwartz though does not place Farnsworth so much on a pedestal, but rather creates the same relative effect by diminishing all opposition, in particular the efforts of the international TV scene and of the other US pioneers.. and this lack of balance and objectivity is the book's main failing and the reason for not awarding a higher rating.

One example: Ask yourself how good was the quality of the picture on the Image Dissector compared with the Iconoscope? You won't find an answer in the book. In fact Schwartz ignores the official 'bake-off' competition in Britain in late 1936 by the BBC between Marconi-EMI's version of the Iconoscope (EMItron) and the Baird Company's technologies including Farnsworth's Image Dissector. The official result was Farnsworth's device was no match for the EMItron in a studio environment.

Looking at the references gives the game away - there are no primary references for the non-Farnsworth, non-RCA material. The international scene is mostly dealt with by references to recent American popularist books. What about Kalman Tihanyi (inventor of Iconoscope, patented 1928)? Boris Rosing (Zworykin's teacher in Russia)?, Campbell Swinton (specified the electronic approach in 1908 and 1911)? Takayanagi (electronic television display demonstrated in 1926)? to name but a few. More balance please!

The American audience will love this highly readable popularist book. This is flag-waving entertaining stuff. Enjoy it, but please try to understand that this is not the whole story.