Time to test your television technology history knowledge.

Did you think television was a 20th-century invention? I'll bet you were surprised at some of the dates. Scientists were working on sending pictures through the aether a lot longer than you think. Of course, there's still nothing worth watching on TV.

Check your answers to the questions. If you got this lot, you're probably a television engineer.

1. By what name did English scene painter Philip James de Loutherbourg call his 1781 version of television?
   Eidophusikon. He really scared people in Leicester Square with that thing. To see a recreation by Australian artists, go here. The storm at sea was pretty scary, but we would have loved to see 'Satan arraying his Troops on the Banks of the Fiery Lake, with the Raising of the Palace of Pandemonium'. What scifi fan wouldn't?
2. What did Peter Mark Roget's Thaumatrope demonstrate?
   Persistence of vision. Without it, no TV. Watch one here.
3. What did Michael Faraday do in 1830 that was important for television?
   Passed electricity through a vacuum tube. Very important, that.
4. What did May and Smith find out in 1873 by experimenting with selenium and light?
   Images could be turned into electronic signals. Yes, that early. Can you imagine Victorian TV?
5. What did a Pantelegraph transmit in 1862?
   A still image. Over wires. Can you say 'fax machine'? We knew you could. Do you want to see how it works? We knew you would. Watch the Russian.
6. In 2008, Londoners and New Yorkers could celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge together – by communicating via Telectroscope. When was the Telectroscope invented?
   1876. By George R Carey of Boston, USA. Want to see it in action? Of course you do, you technophile.
7. What was the first book about television called, and when was it published?
   La Telescopie Electrique, by Denis Redmond. Published in 1880. Redmond built such a device to transmit an image electrically.
8. What did KF Braun invent in 1897 that television couldn't have done without?
   The cathode ray tube.   Pretty advanced stuff.
9. Who first called it 'television', and in what momentous year?
   Constantin Perskyi, 1900. Fittingly, at the Congress of Electricity at the World's Fair in Paris. See the Palace of Electricity in 1900. Be impressed.
10. In what year was the first television set sold?
    1928. Of course, you'd have to wait a while before you could see this. The set cost $75. A bargain.

You knew them all? You deserve the Nobel Trivia Prize. Annoy your friends with all this information. Or build yourself a thaumatrope.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

18.03.13 Front Page

Back Issue Page