Pavel Mervart Publishing Society for the History of Sciences and Technology

Vít Šmerha:
A forgotten invention from the early days of television. Fragments from the life and work of Jan Szczepanik, aka the Polish Edison


2013, Volume 46, Issue 1, pp. 44-50

Abstract

The article deals with a forgotten invention of the so-called telectroscope and additional inventions of Jan Szczepanik. The author of a forgotten telectroscope (an electrical device designed to transmit video images and sound at a longer distance) was Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik. According to a Czech physicist Jaroslav Šafránek (1890–1957), the telectroscope method is among the methods using selenium to record and reproduce luminous images – an element whose electrical resistance changes depending on the frequency and intensity of the impacting light. Szczepanik followed up on the work of a German physicist Paul Nipkow, holder of the so-called Nipkow disk patent.

Keywords

telectroscope; television; inventions; colour film and photography; weaving

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