NEWS RELEASE: New Book

        Note from John Dilks, NJARC Web Editor: This is the best historical book to come out in a long time. I planned to (and still do) write "A Radioman's Review of a Television Book." In the mean time, the information in this book is too good to sit on while I read the entire book, then write the report. Hence, I am publishing their News Release for your information.

An anecdotal history that reads like an adventure story, Tube follows the competing and criss-crossing lives of television's primary inventors:

John Logie Baird, the eccentric Scot who created the first mechanical prototype of television. His earlier inventions-the Baird Under-Sock and the glass rustless razor-met with limited success, but he enjoyed fame and fortune with his televisor. He ignored new technology, however, and watched his dream disappear in the realization of an all-electronic system.

Philo T. Farnsworth, the Idaho farm boy who visualized the first electronic model for television when he was fourteen years old. By the time he was twenty, he'd found private funding and built his model. The youngest and most ambitious of the "lone" inventors, he would nevertheless be defeated by the powerful RCA.

Vladimir Zworykin, the scientist who paved the way for RCA. His electronic system lacked some of the finesse of Farnsworth's model, but his genius, combined with RCA's backing, would prove unstoppable.

There were others. Ernst Alexanderson, the scientist who lost out to Zworykin at RCA. Charles Jenkins, whose broadcasting business (one of the first) died in the Depression. And of course, David Sarnoff, the RCA executive who ruthlessly molded TV into the commercially viable household commodity we know today. In the end, none of them could claim the title 'inventor of television,' for it came into being gradually, through all of their efforts combined.

Tube concludes with a look at the future of television in the digital age. Over the next ten to fifteen years, the American public will increasingly receive television programs as digital signals, collapsing the separation between television and the Internet. With this great metamorphosis approaching, it is a particularly good time to look back at television's past. Tube will tell the MTV generation, if anything can, the story behind the device that has shaped them. It will explain to the nonscientist how television actually works, and it will tell us all about the men who devoted their lives to inventing it and who deserve greater fame.

David E. Fisher, an author celebrated for his ability to make science understandable, and his son Marshall Jon Fisher, have created a book that is more than the history of an invention. It is a compelling story of eccentric personalities, exciting times, unbridled genius and greed. What did you expect? After all, this is TV. Click here for more information about the authors.