Background

Vladimir Zworykin was born on 29 July 1888 in Murom, Russia. His father was a prosperous merchant.

Education

Early Education and Career Zworykin received a degree in electrical engineering from the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology in 1912 and a doctorate in physics in 1926 from the University of Pittsburgh.

Career

Like many European intellectuals of the 20th century, Zworykin was driven to the United States by the recurrent religious persecution and political repression, which rocked Europe and Russia. He came to America in 1920, 3 years after the Russian Revolution, and joined the research staff of Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh.

In 1930 he went to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), where he was made director of the electronics research laboratory. The Race for Television Zworykin was one of the earliest pioneers in the development of television. Before he left the St. Petersburg laboratory of Boris Rosing in 1919, he had the germ of an idea for an improved television system. When he joined Westinghouse in 1920, he hoped to be able to continue his work but soon discovered that firm was interested only in radio research. He left Pittsburgh to join a small development company in Kansas but returned to Westinghouse in 1923, this time with the agreement that he could continue work on television.

According to an interview conducted for the RCA Engineers Collection, July 4, 1975, Zworykin details early developments with primitive geometric pictures generated as early as 1923. In that year he applied for a patent on his "Iconoscope," a device which transmitted television images quickly and sharply. It was perhaps the single most important breakthrough in the history of television development.

When Westinghouse transferred most of its radio research work to RCA in 1930, he moved over too and continued its development. A PBS documentary series, The American Experience titled "Who is Philo T. Farnsworth?" details the race to create a working television. According to the documentary, at the time of Zworykin's transfer to RCA, he met with fellow television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth. Under the guise of a fellow-researcher, Zworykin spent three days in Farnsworth's lab, and was given almost total access to Farnsworth's technology.

After his return to New York, Zworykin's work incorporated many of the innovations that he'd seen at Farnsworth's lab. Zworykin and Farnsworth battled in court for many years before patents were awarded to both men in the 1930's.

But RCA had the marketing might and money to prevail. In 1929, David Sarnoff, Chairman of RCA asked Zworykin how much he thought it would cost to develop a workable system, and Zworykin estimated "$100, 000." It ended up costing RCA $40, 000, 000 before they began turning a profit. Television broadcasts were available in limited areas, at limited times in Berlin, London, Russia and the US prior to World War II. Commercial television was authorized in the United States in 1940, but its growth was held up by World War II. Ironically, Zworykin was unimpressed by the television programming available, terming it in a 1981 interview as "awful".

During the war Zworykin, like many scientists who specialized in electronics, played an important role in developing new weapons for the military. He served on the Scientific Advisory Board to the Commanding General of the U. S. Army Air Force, as well as on the Ordnance Advisory Committee on Guided Missiles. At the same time he personally directed important research work and served on three subcommittees of the National Defense Research Committee.

In 1947 he became a vice president of RCA and technical consultant to the RCA Laboratories Division, positions he held until 1954.

While most of his career was spent developing television and its electrical components, Zworykin spent his time after retirement from RCA in 1954 as Director of Medical Research at the Medical Electronics Center at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) until 1962.

Zworykin died on his 94th birthday, July 29, 1982 in Princeton, New Jersey.

Achievements

• Vladimir Kosma Zworykin made important contributions to the development of television, as well as to the newer field of electronics.
  
  After the war Zworykin continued his electronics work and made important contributions to the development of the electron microscope. He was also instrumental in the development of the electric eye used in security systems and automatic door openers, a device to read print to the blind, and electronically controlled missiles and automobiles.
  
  In 1952 he was awarded the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers for "outstanding contributions to the concept and development of electronic components and systems."
  
  He received the first Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation in 1980.
  
  Zworykin was inducted into the New Jersey Inventor's Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Additionally, Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon has named a street on its campus after Zworykin.
  
  Zworykin is listed in the Russian-American Chamber of Fame of Congress of Russian Americans, which is dedicated to Russian immigrants who made outstanding contributions to American science or culture.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Television: The Electronics of Image Transmission

    (Format Paperback Subject Literary Collections)

  • Vladimir K. Zworykin - Typed Letter Signed 10/26/1970

    (VLADIMIR K. ZWORYKIN Vladimir K. Zworykin sends a typed l...)

  • Vladimir K. Zworykin - First Day Cover Signed

    (VLADIMIR K. ZWORYKIN Vladimir K. Zworykin signs a philate...)

  • Television in Science and Industry
  • Photocells and their application

Views

Although Vladimir Zworykin was proud on the technology of his invention, he was very dissatisfied with the violence and the senseless programs that the networks were broadcasting regularly using it.

Quotations: "I hate what they've done to my child...I would never let my own children watch it." - Vladimir Zworykin on his feelings about watching television.

Connections

Zworykin married Tatiana Vasilieff around 1915 and had two children. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1919, becoming a US citizen in 1924. He was divorced from Vasilieff and married Katherine Polevitsky in 1951. Zworykin died on July 29, 1982 at the age of 93.

Father:

Kosma Zworykin

Mother:

Elaine Zworykin

1st wife:

Tatiana Vasilieff

2nd wife:

Katherine Polevitsky

collaborator:

Boris Rosing

Boris Lvovich Rosing was a Russian scientist and inventor in the field of television. Boris Rosing, a professor in charge of laboratory projects, tutored Zworykin and introduced his student to his experiments of transmitting pictures by wire. Together they experimented with a very early cathode-ray tube, developed in Germany by Karl Ferdinand Braun.

Rosing and Zworykin exhibited a television system in 1910, using a mechanical scanner in the transmitter and the electronic Braun tube in the receiver.

Daughter:

Elaine Zworykin

Daughter:

Nina Zworykin

associate:

Philo Farnsworth

In April 1930 Zworykin visited the San Francisco laboratory of inventor Philo Farnsworth at the behest of Farnsworth’s backers, who wanted to make a deal with RCA. Three years earlier Farnsworth had done the first successful demonstration of an entirely electronic television system. Zworykin was particularly impressed by Farnsworth’s transmission tube, the image dissector, and was inspired by its innovations to develop an improved camera tube, the iconoscope, for which he filed a patent in 1931.

References

• Who Invented the Television?: Sarnoff vs. Farnsworth (STEM Smackdown (Alternator Books ™))
• Inventors and Inventions - Vladimir Zworykin (Trading Card) 2004 Upper Deck The History of the United States - Base #II33
• Vladimir Zworykin Kozmitch, 1889-1982 (scientific and biographical literature) / Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin, 1889-1982 (Nauchno-biograficheskaya literatura)
• Zworykin, Pioneer of Television
• How It Works: The Illustrated Science and Invention Encyclopedia (Welding to Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma Historic Inventions, Volume 20)