The inventor of television is a Russian gift to America. Zvorykin Vladimir Kozmich, inventor of television

07/29/1982. An emigrant died in the USA Vladimir Kuzmich Zvorykin, inventor of television

Zvorykin - the father of television

(30.7.1889–29.7.1982) - inventor of the kinescope, spent most of his life in exile in the USA, where he died. But he gave so much to humanity that today we cannot imagine life without some of the fruits of his technical thought.

He was born into the family of a rich Murom merchant, the boy was named in honor. Vladimir grew up very inquisitive, and his father tried not to fetter his son’s initiative. If he wants to go for the summer as a cabin boy on his father’s luxury yacht - please. Dreaming of a book that has just appeared on the shelves in Moscow - what's the question? He is drawn to radio electronics - for God's sake. One day, all the electrical equipment on the yacht burned out, but the father allowed his son to fix the breakdown and was very proud when he succeeded.

This small success gave Zvorykin Jr. self-confidence. He became interested in electrical engineering, and his teacher was the famous electronics specialist B.L. Rosing, who was the first to use a cathode ray tube to receive television images. Zvorykin became his best student, with whom the master held conversations about the future of television.

At first, Zvorykin decided to study physics and entered St. Petersburg University, but soon transferred to the electrical engineering department of the St. Petersburg Technical Institute, where he met Rosing. It was the professor who insisted that his talented student continue his studies in Europe. Zvorykin chose the Collège de France in Paris, however, his internship did not last long - it began. From its very first months, Vladimir, having returned to his homeland, became an officer in the wireless telegraph units.

In 1915, he was sent to the Petrograd Officer Electrical Engineering School. Here he was again lucky with a teacher - Colonel I.E. Muromtsev. In addition, he arranged for the young officer to work at the Russian Society of Wireless Telegraphs and Telephones ROBTiT, a subsidiary of the English company Marconi in Petrograd.

Anticipating skeptical judgments that all such technical inventions We would argue that they only contributed to Satan’s influence on humanity. And on radio, and on television, on the Internet, and on the printing press, you can make it accessible to people Holy Bible and worship, but you can spread godlessness and pornography. During the preaching of Christ, it never occurred to anyone to condemn the then means of disseminating information: papyrus, writing tablets and leather scrolls. The gospel message was recorded and spread throughout the world with the help of various technical devices.

Boris Lvovich Rosing was at one time one of the first researchers of electronic transmission of images over long distances. The scientist demonstrated his invention to his colleagues for the first time on May 9, 1911. And soon he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Technical Society for this. According to historians of technology, Rosing's achievements played a fundamental role in the creation modern television. And all these years, his assistant was Vladimir Zvorykin, who, after graduating with honors from the institute, went to Paris to continue his studies with the famous physicist Paul Langevin.
And then the first one began World War. Zvorykin served in Grodno as an officer in the signal troops. He was then sent to scientific research to Petrograd, where he almost became a victim of the February Revolution. One of the soldiers complained that “this Zworykin” was making fun of him: he made him speak numbers into a “hole” (microphone) for a long time, while he himself rummaged through some drawer in another room. Fortunately, the tribunal sorted everything out and Zvorykin was released.
October 1917 found him in Moscow. The Bolsheviks obliged all former officers to join the Red Army, which Zvorykin did not want to do. He decided to make his way to Omsk, the then capital of independent Siberia. Vladimir Kozmich knew that they needed specialists in modern means radio communications. However, in Yekaterinburg he was arrested by the Bolsheviks. They probably would have been shot, but at that moment the White Czechs entered the city, and Zvorykin managed to get to Omsk.
From here the scientist was sent to the USA to conclude contracts for the purchase of the latest equipment. He coped with the task of the Siberian government. In 1919 he was sent to America again. This time, Zvorykin decided not to return to his homeland, because he realized that the Siberian government was about to cease to exist.
In Edison's homeland
At first, things did not go very smoothly in America. True, Zvorykin managed to get a job in the laboratory of a company, where he created an electronic device with an original transmitting tube. But this device did not satisfy the management of the enterprise. “Do something more useful,” the scientist was instructed. However, Vladimir Kozmich continued to engage in “far-sighting” in his free time and in 1929 he patented a kinescope, the operating principle of which has been preserved to this day!
In 1929, in the USA, Zworykin met a man who immediately appreciated the promise of the Russian inventor’s research. It was David Sarnov, who invited Zvorykin to move to his company, and when the transition took place, he created Vladimir Kozmich excellent conditions for work. Thanks to this, already in 1931, Zvorykin created a tube with charge accumulation. The inventor called it “iconoscope” (“icon” from Greek - image; “scope” to see). Two units - the iconoscope and the kinescope - became the main units in the electronic television system.

Inventor at the electron microscope

In 1936, regular television broadcasts began in Germany and Great Britain. By the way, the 1936 Summer Olympics were broadcast on television from Berlin. And in 1938, David Sarnoff announced that television had become technically feasible in every home. Sarnov stood in front of a television camera at one of the pavilions of the New York World's Fair and announced: “Now we are adding image to sound.”
Other inventions of Zvorykin
Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin is not only the inventor of television. For example, he invented the instruments that allowed American pilots to successfully bomb Berlin in thick fog in 1944. After the war, the scientist developed color television. In addition, he was involved in work on the creation of photocells, photomultipliers and electron-optical converters for night vision devices. Zworykin is also known as the inventor of the world's first electron microscope. He worked fruitfully in the field of medical electronics. In particular, he created a device for diagnosing internal organs. In total, Vladimir Kozmich has 120 inventions.
Did Zworykin want to return to his homeland? He had such a thought. In 1933 and 1934 he even visited the Soviet Union. He gave presentations, became acquainted with the developments of Moscow and Leningrad laboratories, after which he seriously considered leaving the United States. His relatives dissuaded him: as soon as he became a citizen of the USSR and not an American subject, he would immediately be reminded of his White Guard past, emigration, and so on. One could not hope for the humanity of the Stalinist regime even in relation to the brilliant scientist.
Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin and died in America in 1982.

Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin was the first of our compatriots to receive the honor of entering the Russian-American Chamber of Fame. He owns the invention that had the most important impact on the society of the twentieth century - electronic television. Zworykin's developments gave birth to such devices as an electron microscope, a night vision device and an electron-optical converter. Without it, neither a personal computer nor many other devices that are used in the military, medical and engineering fields would exist.

Premature opening

The future great inventor was born on July 17, 1889 in the family of a merchant of the first guild, Kozma Alekseevich Zvorykin, who owned several ships, traded in bread and financial transactions - he served as chairman of the Murom Public Bank. Volodya was the youngest of seven children of a merchant. The father, an exemplary capitalist, was distinguished by progressive views and tried to instill in his children labor discipline. He encouraged his sons' interest in science in every possible way - especially since several of Kozma Alekseevich's brothers became famous scientists: Nikolai Zvorykin was a master of mathematics and physicist, professor of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Konstantin Zvorykin was an engineer, author of works on metal processing and mechanical engineering technologies. And Ivan Alekseevich, a professor of physics at Moscow University, probably could have become a great meteorologist - he was creating a device that would register electrical discharges, predicting the approach of a thunderstorm. But, alas, his life was tragically cut short - he had connections with the People's Will organization and shot himself when the police came to his apartment with an arrest warrant.

Like Konstantin Alekseevich, Vladimir showed an interest in technology from childhood and in his youth chose the right path - he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. It was in 1906, at the very height of the First Russian Revolution, and the newly minted student did not remain aloof from political events - together with his comrades he ended up in prison for two weeks for distributing leaflets calling for reforms and elections to the Second Duma. The most important role Zvorykin’s fate was influenced by his meeting with Professor Boris Lvovich Rosing, who conducted experiments on electronic transmission of images over a distance. One day, having caught Vladimir doing someone else’s laboratory work (he was helping a friend), Boris Lvovich did not reprimand him, but, on the contrary, invited him to be an assistant in his laboratory. “Since you spend so much time here anyway,” he added slyly. Zvorykin happily agreed.

Now it’s somehow strange to think about it, but at the time when Rosing and Zworykin created their electron-vacuum tube, the most likely path for the development of television was considered mechanical. In the 1920s, Scottish inventor John Bird created mechanical television based on the so-called Nipkow disk - a simple device that allows you to turn a scanned image into a set of “lines”, from which you can then reassemble the image on the screen of the receiving device. In 1925, Byrd demonstrated the transmission of images over a distance - the image of a humanoid doll on a mechanical “screen” assembled from flickering squares seemed to be a ghost caused by an experienced medium. Despite the obvious imperfection of the technology, contemporaries immediately fell in love with the “box”. Two years later, Byrd managed to transmit a signal over a distance of 705 km using a telephone cable, and a year later - to carry out the first transmission of a “television signal” between continents. In 1936, the BBC even broadcast “television broadcasts” using the improved Byrd system, which by that time gave a frame resolution of 240 lines. Unlike real television, it did not make it possible to directly transmit the captured image on the air: first it was necessary to record the film on film, which was then scanned.

The first Soviet serial TV B-27. Photo: Kunov Valentin / TASS

Rosing proposed a fundamentally different approach to solving the problem: optical-mechanical devices are a dead-end direction; to construct images, one must use an electron beam in a vacuum, directing it using electromagnetic fields. The idea was so innovative that it was decades ahead of its time: Rosing's system required parts that had not yet been created - for example, photovoltaic cells that could convert light into a stream of electrons. Even vacuum had to be obtained using antediluvian methods - using hand vacuum pumps. If technology had matured, perhaps Rosing would have been awarded the laurels of the pioneer of television. But many more years passed before the dream became feasible.

In the service of Kolchak

Having received a diploma in electrical engineering in 1912, Zworykin went to study abroad - at the Parisian Collège de France, where his professor was the outstanding physicist Paul Langevin. Here Zvorykin worked with X-ray installations, exploring their capabilities for studying crystal structures. The inventor himself writes in his memoirs that he survived by some miracle: the X-ray equipment of that time was powerful and did not have a protective screen - many of those who worked with them died within several years. But research work at the Collège de France provided an opportunity to study areas that Zvorykin would later find useful. In 1912, when the transmission of radio time signals from the Eiffel Tower began, he independently assembled a radio receiver in the laboratory - this was his first experience with radio. And the young engineer’s first acquaintance with medical electronics happened in a completely curious way: one day a student from Russia came into his laboratory and had a needle get under her skin in the area of ​​her wrist. The doctor was unable to determine its location and remove the needle. At that time, X-ray machines were only available in large hospitals. Zvorykin managed to set up his setup in such a way as to take a clear picture, which allowed the doctor to remove the foreign object. Vladimir’s experience with transmitting and receiving radio signals helped him during the First World War: he was called up to military service, he was engaged in the construction of field radio stations.

The revolution put an end to Zvorykin’s dreams of engaging in scientific activities in his homeland. Scientific work was poorly funded, old educational establishments were defeated, many of the inventor’s colleagues went abroad. At the invitation of friends who worked in an international cooperative organization, he went to Omsk, where the provisional Siberian government operated. The local Ministry of Supply sent him to the United States to negotiate the purchase of radio equipment. To leave the country, Zvorykin had to get out of the ring of fronts - by joining the ranks Arctic expedition, he reached the island of Vaygach and from there went on an icebreaker to Arkhangelsk, which was occupied by the British and French. Having received the necessary visas, Zworykin finally went to the United States. However, in 1919, this country had not yet become his second home - soon he was again requested to Omsk, and he had to return in a roundabout way - through Canada, Japan and Vladivostok. And only during his next visit on behalf of the provisional government of Siberia did he realize that he would remain in America forever: soon after his arrival in New York, the Kolchak government fell, and there was nowhere to return.

The first RCA 630-TS TV to go into mass production. Photo: Fletcher6 / Wikipedia

The United States had not yet recognized the Bolshevik government, and Zvorykin decided to ask the ambassador of the Provisional Government in the United States, Boris Bakhmetyev, to get him a job at the embassy. It turned out that the only place he could offer him was that of a specialist working on an adding machine in the accounting department of the Russian Purchasing Commission in New York. Zvorykin agreed, but did not accept the miserable position - he began sending letters to companies looking for vacancies for radio electronics specialists. Finally, he received an invitation from Westinghouse Electric in Pittsburgh: in the corporate laboratory he began preparing cathodes for radio tubes. While working at this electric company, Zvorykin made several inventions, which, however, he never patented - he did not know English well and could not explain to the patent attorney what exactly their novelty was.

Zvorykin’s “career” in the United States was not at all smooth: after leaving Westinghouse Electric, at the invitation of a petrochemical company, he moved to Kansas City. He didn’t understand petrochemistry, but the salary here was twice as high, and they also gave him the opportunity to open his own laboratory. Experiments to improve the process of cracking oil using high-frequency current did not bring success - it turned out that the current even slows down the process of splitting hydrocarbons. The management was furious, the laboratory was closed, and Zvorykin ended up on the street.

Dream come true

However, this failure was only one of the troubles that preceded success. When, many years later, the inventor asked his daughter Nina what she remembered most about life in Kansas City, she replied: “The phrase “electron beam.” You repeated it a hundred times a day.” Soon after being expelled from the petrochemical industry, he was invited back to Westinghouse Electric: the head of the laboratory had changed there, and its new head expressed interest in Zvorykin’s projects, which were not appreciated by the previous bosses. The scientist was given the opportunity to do what he liked, and in less than two months, working almost alone, he assembled the first operating electronic television system. Contrary to popular misconception, the transmitting electron tube was called an “iconoscope”, and the receiving tube from the very beginning received the same name as it does now - kinescope. And although the quality of the transmitted signal was far from perfect, the head of the laboratory immediately believed that the future lay in electronic rather than mechanical television. But the general director, to whom he demonstrated the invention of the talented Russian, just chuckled and brought out his resume: “The guy is talented, but he does nonsense. Isn’t it possible to use it more usefully?” A perfect illustration of corporate shortsightedness!

In the first half of the 20s, Zvorykin patented several inventions at once - an iconoscope, a kinescope, a model of color television. In 1926 he received doctorate for his work in the field of photovoltaic cells. However, his ideas did not have commercial success - no one undertook to turn them into a product in demand by consumers. It is difficult to say how much more time the inventor could have spent proving their usefulness to others if not for another successful acquaintance: he managed to tell David Sarnov, president of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), about his developments. Perhaps the compatriot effect played a role: like Zvorykin, Sarnov was a native Russian Empire and spoke excellent Russian. He was a successful businessman and from the very beginning believed in the promise of electronic television. In 1929, Zvorykin went to work at RCA, where he improved the iconoscope for two years. Finally, television appears as a service available to ordinary citizens - so far, however, only in New York: a transmitting station installed on the 85th floor of the Empire State Building allows residents of the city and surrounding area to receive broadcasts on television receivers manufactured by RCA factories.

Empire State Building. Photo: AP

Zvorykin’s invention, which was immediately dubbed the “miracle of the 20th century,” quickly became interested all over the world - corporations understood the commercial benefits of television, governments understood the propaganda benefits: for example, Nazi Germany used television cameras of the Zvorykin system in order to conduct the world's first live broadcast - with Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. The idea of ​​​​creating our own television caused delight among the leaders of the USSR. Unlike, for example, Igor Sikorsky, Zvorykin was never an implacable enemy of Bolshevism - at the invitation of the Soviet government, he visited Moscow in 1935 and took part in signing an agreement with RCA on the supply of television equipment. The first television transmitting station in Moscow began operating in 1938 using equipment supplied by the studio. The first Soviet TV, TK-1, which was produced in 1934 at the Kozitsky plant in Leningrad, was made under an American license.

During the television broadcast of the landing of American astronauts on the Moon, Zworykin cried with happiness - from now on he will be involved in everything that is happening in the world: after all, it is his brainchild that allows us to see even what is separated from us by hundreds of thousands of kilometers. However, the ability to see far (remember that television literally means “far vision”) was possessed not only by Zvorykin’s brainchild, but also by himself. One of the inventor’s colleagues called it “A Gift to the American Continent.” Zworykin’s merits in the United States were appreciated - in 1978, the Congress of Russian Americans awarded him the title of Honored Russian American for his outstanding contribution to world science and equipment, and his native company awarded him the position of honorary vice president.

Television is far from the only invention of this great Russian scientist: during the Second World War, while working as part of the US Air Force Advisory Committee, he used a kinescope to construct a night vision device capable of converting infrared rays into an image accessible to the human eye. In addition, he became a pioneer in the field of television-controlled bombs and missiles. Back in the twenties, Zworykin created an electronic fax machine (the mechanical “fax” was invented back in mid-19th century). In the fifties, Zworykin returned to experiments in medical electronics, begun by x-ray, which allowed the needle to be removed from the hand of a Russian student. In collaboration with Canadian engineer James Hiller, he invented the first electron microscope high resolution, which could be used for medical and biological research.

Zvorykin visited the USSR two more times - in 1967, Vladimir Kozmich and his wife even went to their native Murom, buying a tourist ticket. It is noteworthy that the emigrant’s merits did not allow his name to be silenced even in his homeland, which diligently disowned the talented people who left it.

V. Zvorykin

Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin was born 17 (29) July 1889 in the city of Murom Vladimir province in a merchant family.

Father - merchant of the 1st guild Kozma Zvorykin, who traded bread, owned steamships and was the former chairman of the Murom Public Bank. In his autobiography, V. Zvorykin himself characterizes his father as a man of progressive ideas, who was also the head of Murom for one term.

• From childhood, the father tried to accustom his children to socially useful work, writes Zvorykin. He himself, according to him, showed an interest in technology from his youth. After graduating from the Murom Real School, in 1906 he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. Takes part in student unrest. Moreover, having been captured while distributing leaflets calling for democratic reforms and elections to the Second Duma, he spends two weeks in prison with his student friends. The student period is also significant for the future engineering genius fateful meeting with Professor Boris Rosing, author of pioneering work on electronic image transmission at a distance. The young engineer begins to devote a lot of attention to his work as Rosing's assistant in a special laboratory. In addition to Rosing’s scientific ideas, the autobiography tells, the student Zvorykin was greatly impressed by his foreign trip to industrial plants in Germany, Belgium, France and England, which took place under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce.
• Having received a diploma in electrical engineering in 1912, Zvorykin went to study at the Paris College de France with the outstanding physicist Paul Langevin. Then, despite his father’s absentee attempts to involve his son in the common Murom cause, he continued his studies at the University of Berlin. Shortly after returning to Russia via Denmark and Finland during World War I, Zvorykin was drafted into the army. For a year and a half in Grodno, he was responsible for setting up and equipping radio stations. Meets the February Revolution in Petrograd with the rank of lieutenant, working as a teacher at an officer radio school.
• After the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government nationalized my father’s business and the magnificent family house above the Oka River in Murom. Established scientific and industrial ties have been destroyed.
• The talented young man recalls that he “had friends in a large cooperative organization that had its representative offices in America and the Siberian city of Omsk.” He managed to receive an invitation from these friends to go there to carry out an official assignment. Having stocked up with a lot of official papers, he goes to Siberia. Wandering around Russia (by train to Nizhny Novgorod, then along the Kama by steamship to Perm, from there again by train to Yekaterinburg and again by train to Omsk), the young man eventually arrives at a meeting with representatives of the Siberian government of Russia. The government sends him to the United States to negotiate the supply of radio equipment. Since Omsk was cut off on all sides except the north by the warring factions, Zvorykin joins the Arctic expedition and floats across the Kara Sea by steamer over the course of a half-month along the Irtysh and Ob rivers to the island of Vaygach. At the end of the journey he reaches a radio station located between the islands of Vaygach and Novaya Zemlya and built to report on ice conditions in this part of the ocean. After waiting for the icebreaker, a few weeks later Zvorykin reaches Arkhangelsk, occupied by the troops of the allied Entente. Having received visas and made stops along the way in Norway, Denmark and England, on the eve of 1919 he finally arrived in the United States.
• “Soon after arriving, I found the office of a cooperative organization, to which I owed a business trip and a trip,” the researcher recalls. There, a young engineer is studying radio equipment. But “in the spring, an order was received from the Siberian government for me to return to Omsk. They needed a radio specialist, and I also had to bring some radio equipment parts.” And he goes back. The main map of his route is as follows: Seattle - Yokohama - Vladivostok. And in January 1919, Zworykin symbolically closed the trip around the world, returning to Omsk, this time via the Pacific Ocean, Japan, Vladivostok and Harbin. An adventure that seemed so incredible that initially Albert Abramson, the biographer of the outstanding inventor, did not believe in the authenticity of Zvorykin’s story.
• After some time, Zvorykin - already during the reign of Admiral Kolchak - left for the USA again. This time free from obligations to anyone.
• He arrives without recommendations, and, moreover, speaks virtually no English. As news from his homeland, he brings with him a jar of myrrh - a blessed oil used in church service, which the Russian Orthodox Church asked to transfer to the head of the Russian Church in the USA.
• The future world genius was lucky: sensing his potential, Zvorykin was initially taken under the wing of the Russian Ambassador to the USA B.A. Bakhmetyev. (The fate of Bakhmetyev himself is noteworthy: the United States is in no hurry to recognize the Bolshevik government. And former professor St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute Bakhmetyev still manages the activities of the embassy, ​​information bureau and purchasing commission of Russia in the United States.) Zvorykin is assigned to the staff of the purchasing commission based in New York. In his autobiography, the manuscript of which is kept in the Pittsburgh Museum, you can read: “... Worked as an accountant.”
• The newly minted emigrant persistently sends dozens of letters to various companies offering his services as a radio electronics specialist. As a result, he is invited to work at the Westinghouse research laboratory (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). (I worked in this company large group emigrants from the former Russian Empire. In particular, Stepan Timoshenko, a specialist in the strength of materials, whose books have been translated into many languages.) The young radio engineer’s desire to work in his specialty is so great that, according to historians, he was not embarrassed by the size of the salary, half that of the procurement commission. Zvorykin did not immediately have the opportunity to study television in the Pittsburgh laboratory. He worked fanatically: the Westinghouse security guards were ordered by management to send the scientist home if the windows of his laboratory were lit after 2 am.
• In 1923, Zvorykin finally got the opportunity to begin implementing the idea of ​​​​creating electronic television. And in the same year, he drew up a patent application in which he fully described the electronic television system. The US Patent Office refused Zworykin on the grounds that the photosensitive plate for the transmitting tube (that is, a television camera) described in the application does not exist in reality and there are serious doubts about the possibility of its creation under existing conditions. Then he takes a time out and completely switches to the official task of Westinghouse - the development of photovoltaic cells, which have begun to be actively introduced into engineering and industrial construction. It was this, as he himself admitted, uninteresting work that made his name known both in Pittsburgh itself (in 1926 the University of Pittsburgh awarded him a doctorate) and beyond.
• At the same time, the inventor did not stop doing his work related to television.
• “By that time,” he later recalled, “I realized that work on an idea that could lead to commercial success must be camouflaged until the possibility of making a profit became obvious to business people.” In order to move from experiments to pilot production, a representative of large business was needed.
• And such a representative appeared in the person of compatriot David Sarnov, president of Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Sarnov was born into a poor Jewish family in the town of Uzlyany (modern Belarus) and was brought to the United States by his parents at the age of nine. David Abramovich spoke both Russian and English perfectly; was a completely assimilated American. Behind Sarnov is the path from an ordinary employee of the Marcorni company to the head of a huge corporation.
• After talking with Zworykin, he, unlike other American bosses, believed in his ideas and long years became his boss and patron. Sarnov subsequently recalled that in response to a question about the estimated cost of the project, Zvorykin asked for a “modest” $100,000. In fact, the design work cost a hundred times that amount, and the company began to receive its first income from television when the total investment exceeded $50 million. In 1929, Zvorykin began working at the RCA branch located in Camden (New Jersey). In 1931, he created the final design of the transmitting tube iconoscope, which became the basis for the future electronic television system. After a series of practical tests carried out in Camden, a 2.5 kW television transmitting station is installed on the tallest building in New York - the Empire State Building. RCA factories begin to produce televisions with a picture tube designed by Zvorykin. Residents of New York and surrounding areas within a radius of up to 100 km are becoming the first subscribers to electronic television. By 1933, Zvorykin and his employees completed the creation of an electronic television system. The birth of the television can be dated back to 1933, when Vladimir Zvorykin spoke at the annual conference of the American Society of Radio Engineers. In his report “Iconoscope - modern version electric eye,” the scientist summed up the results of many years of work. He invented a device capable of transmitting the resulting image of an object to the screen of a cathode ray tube, that is, a kinescope. New development became one of the most outstanding inventions of its time and is deservedly called the “miracle of the twentieth century.”
• For the sake of objectivity, we note that not only Zvorykin claimed the title of inventor of television. In the late twenties, yesterday's schoolboy Philo Farnsworth, a self-taught person from Idaho, who, with the support of philanthropists Leslie Gorell and George Everson, founded his own laboratory in San Francisco, is developing a system for transmitting signals at a distance. Farnsworth’s contribution to the creation of electronic TV is “weighty and undeniable,” writes the modern Russian magazine Popular Mechanics. But the Image Dissector of the 1928 model, developed by him, was of little use for creating television equipment. Zworykin managed to do what Philo Farnsworth and his equally talented like-minded friend and competitor, Hungarian Kalman Tihanyi, who filed an application for his invention with the US Patent Office in 1928, failed. All issues related to the recognition of the priority and authorship of Vladimir Zvorykin are described in detail in the book by television history researcher Albert Abramson. It also says that RCA President David Sarnov, in order to avoid conflicts in this issue and, guided by commercial interests, bought his patents from Farnsworth for $1 million. He also acquired the patent of the Hungarian inventor.
• In the second half of the 1930s, the threat of war became increasingly obvious. Many leading American corporations receive military orders. During these years, Zvorykin was mainly engaged in the problems of electronic optics, working together with I. Langmuir, J. Morton, L. Malter... Research in the field of electron-optical transformations led to the creation of a night vision device operating in the infrared range. During World War II, night vision devices designed by Zvorykin were used by the US Army to equip tanks and vehicles, and also as sights. It was he who developed the first television-controlled aerial bomb, which had an iconoscope that transmitted a picture to the operator. A little later, it was his laboratory that prepared a night vision device, which was immediately adopted by snipers, tank crews and operators. Albert Abramson, in his voluminous study, writes a lot about guided missiles and underwater torpedoes, developed with the active participation of Vladimir Zvorykin. The list of applications of inventions can be continued endlessly.
• Years of living in the USA did not alleviate the homesickness. Vladimir Zvorykin strives to go to Russia. For the management of the RCA company, Zworykin's trip to the USSR is seen as an opportunity to receive Russian orders for its products: the United States was experiencing a severe economic crisis - receiving orders for products from other countries was welcomed. Zvorykin himself dreamed of meeting his sisters and brother. A few months before his first trip to the Soviet Union, the company official visit visited by representatives Soviet Union, specialists in the field of radio electronics S.A. Vekshinsky and A.F. Shorin. In a private conversation, the famous engineer was assured that the Soviet government would “provide him with the maximum favorable conditions for work and life and guarantees protection from any persecution related to its pre-revolutionary past.” In August 1933, Zvorykin was in Russia. The report “Television using cathode tubes” in the hall of the Leningrad NTO for Electricians gathers a huge number of specialists. A year later, Zvorykin goes to Russia again. In 1935, RCA concluded a solid agreement with the People's Commissariat of Electrical Industry of the USSR, according to which the Soviet state was supplied with “technological documentation and materials, equipment for the production of electrovacuum devices, equipment for equipping the first Soviet electronic TV center, etc.”
• In the USSR, Vladimir Zvorykin always received a warm welcome. “Bolsheviks,” writes V.P. Borisov, - they forgave the talented scientist everything: officer’s shoulder straps, collaboration with Kolchak, and flight to the USA...” Stalin’s USSR began industrialization: here they were purposefully interested in acquiring latest technologies, including the purchase of television equipment. Moreover, the inventor receives a reception from the People's Commissar of Communications of the USSR Rykov.
• The first Soviet TV “VK” was created precisely according to Zvorykin’s developments. By the end of 1936, the Leningrad Institute of Telemechanics, which by that time had been transformed into the All-Russian Research Institute of Television, completed the development of an electronic television system. On March 10, 1939, regular television broadcasts began from the Moscow Television Center on Shabolovka, and in 1954, the Kuntsevo Radio Engineering Plant in Moscow launched mass production television receivers.
• ...The famous inventor was able to visit his homeland again only in 1959. In 1945, he was actually banned from traveling abroad and was denied a passport. Until the end of the 50s, Zvorykin did not travel. One of the chapters of Albert Abramson's monograph contains detailed information about how the FBI was actively interested in Zworykin since 1943. Why from this moment? In 1943, Zworykin, who by that time had moved with his laboratory to the most prestigious scientific point In view of the city of Princeton, activists of the Fund for Relief to Victims of the War in Russia, which was engaged in collecting funds for the purchase and shipment of food and clothing to the population of the USSR, approached, offering to head the New York branch of this fund. Zvorykin, who in principle had not previously affiliated himself with any parties or movements and was not involved in any social activities, agreed this time. The American Fund for Relief to Victims of the War in Russia, as it became known later, was one of the first on the FBI's list of suspicious organizations and was repeatedly searched at its own headquarters. At the same time, Vladimir Zvorykin in 1943 agreed to head the list of leaders of the New York Science Committee of the Council of American-Soviet Friendship.
• In 1951, after many years of bachelorhood, he married Ekaterina Polevitskaya, an emigrant from Russia. The history of their union is significant - they met twenty years before the wedding. Zvorykin was fascinated by the beauty and charm of Polevitskaya, who was married. The marriage proposal followed when Zvorykin learned that Ekaterina Polevitskaya had become a widow. And although both newlyweds had crossed the sixty-year mark by that time, they lived in love and harmony for more than thirty (!) years. His energetic and erudite wife, a doctor by profession, greatly influenced the determination of Zvorykin’s future professional interests. After retiring as director of the RCA Electronics Laboratory in 1954 at the age of 65, his scientific and inventive interests shifted primarily to the field of medical electronics.
• Zvorykin’s merits are appreciated so highly that he is awarded the position of honorary vice president of RCA. “The concept of resignation has nothing to do with Vladimir Zvorykin,” Sarnov said in his final speech at a Princeton University conference specially organized in honor of the outstanding inventor. - A scientist like Zvorykin never resigns. His talent never fades. The imagination and creative instinct of a true scientist lead him to even more extensive knowledge.” That same year, Zworykin began work as director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. For research chemical reactions Inside living cells, a talented inventor soon created a unique microscope that reproduces a color image of objects on a television screen. Further development integrated microelectronics allowed the scientist to implement the idea of ​​endoradiosounding together with doctors. The probe in this method is a miniature radio transmitter tablet, with the help of which “you can obtain data on acidity and other indicators of the internal environment.”
• Together with the outstanding mathematician J. von Neumann, Zworykin is developing a new method for forecasting weather changes using weather rockets and computer data processing. Then he takes on the problem of improving traffic safety on expressways and, as a result, creates an experimental model of a radio-controlled safe car. It is significant that in 1954, our eminent compatriot accurately predicted that a person would see the surface of the Moon and other planets precisely with the help of a television, which would be delivered there on board an interplanetary spacecraft.
• In addition to working at the Rockefeller Institute, the scientist and inventor begins teaching activities visiting professor at the University of Miami. Created International Federation medical electronics and biological technology, Vladimir Zvorykin is elected president of the federation.
• In 1967, the Zvorykin couple formalized an Intourist visit to Vladimir. The two of us went to admire the cathedrals. Then, having caught a taxi, we drove to the closed city of Murom. Thanks to his courage, fifty years later Vladimir Zvorykin is back in his hometown near the house where he spent his childhood and adolescence.
• Died in 1982 in the USA.

Yulia Goryacheva

Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin, inventor of television, was born on July 17 (29 N.S.), 1889

The name of the outstanding Russian engineer-inventor Vladimir Zvorykin, who lived most of his life in the USA, is now often mentioned in the domestic media. His name comes to mind whenever there is talk about the need for technological innovation in Russia.

The name Zvorykin became one of the successful symbols of new landmarks. It sounds logical and fair from the lips of the country’s leadership in connection with the establishment of the annual Zvorykin Prize - National Award in the field of innovation. A little later, the feeds of news agencies bring news of the creation by Leonid Parfenov of a historical documentary film entitled “Zvorykin - Muromets”, as well as of an all-Russian fundraiser for the installation of a monument to the “father of television” in his native Murom.

In the Russian diaspora, Vladimir Zvorykin is a special source of pride: he is the first member of the Russian-American Chamber of Fame. It was Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin who was awarded the title of Honored Russian American in 1978 by the Congress of Russian Americans for his outstanding contribution to world science and technology. It should be noted that in the USA the name of Zvorykin is highly revered, especially by scientists. The famous television historian Albert Abramson dedicated a solid monograph to him, published in 1995, “Zvorykin. Pioneer of television." (The author met with Vladimir Zvorykin during his lifetime, and he gave him one of the versions of a detailed autobiography.)

“A gift to the American continent,” one of his colleagues in the field of electronics described Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin. Having every reason for this: it was Zvorykin who invented the twentieth century - electronic television; his innovative ideas were also used in the creation of electron microscopes, photomultipliers and electron-optical converters, in the creation of new models of military equipment, engineering and medical equipment.

...Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin was born on July 17 (29th New Style) 1889 in the family of the merchant of the first guild Kozma Zvorykin, who traded bread, owned steamships and was the former chairman of the Murom Public Bank. The three-story Zvorykinsky stone house has survived to this day and now serves as the Murom Historical and Art Museum. In his autobiography, the famous scientist and inventor characterizes his father as a man of progressive ideas, who was also the head of Murom for one term. In addition to Vladimir, the youngest child, the family had one more brother and five sisters. From childhood, the father tried to accustom his children to socially useful work, writes Zvorykin. He himself, according to him, showed an interest in technology from his youth. After graduating from the Murom Real School, in 1906 he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. Takes part in student unrest. Moreover, having been captured while distributing leaflets calling for democratic reforms and elections to the Second Duma, he spends two weeks in prison with his student friends. The time of student for the future engineering genius is also significant for the fateful meeting with Professor Boris Rosing, the author of pioneering works on electronic image transmission at a distance. The young engineer begins to devote a lot of attention to his work as Rosing's assistant in a special laboratory. In addition to Rosing’s scientific ideas, the autobiography tells, the student Zvorykin was greatly impressed by his foreign trip to industrial plants in Germany, Belgium, France and England, which took place under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce.

Having received a diploma in electrical engineering in 1912, Zvorykin went to study at the Paris College de France with the outstanding physicist Paul Langevin. Then, despite his father’s absentee attempts to involve his son in the common Murom cause, he continued his studies at the University of Berlin. Shortly after returning to Russia via Denmark and Finland during World War I, Zvorykin was drafted into the army. For a year and a half in Grodno, he was responsible for setting up and equipping radio stations. Meets the February Revolution in Petrograd with the rank of lieutenant, working as a teacher at an officer radio school. After the revolution, his father’s business and the magnificent family house above the Oka River in Murom “become the property of the victorious proletariat.” Established scientific and industrial ties have been destroyed.

“It became obvious,” wrote Zvorykin, “that we should expect a return to normal conditions, in particular for research work, in the near future it was not necessary. The new government issued strict decrees, according to which all former officers were obliged to report to the commissariat for conscription into the Red Army. I didn't want to participate civil war. Moreover, I dreamed of working in a laboratory to realize the ideas I had in mind. In the end I came to the conclusion that for similar work you need to go to another country, and America seemed like such a country to me.”

The talented young man recalls that he “had friends in a large cooperative organization that had its representative offices in America and the Siberian city of Omsk.” He managed to receive an invitation from these friends to go there to carry out an official assignment. Having stocked up with a lot of official papers, he goes to Siberia. Wandering around former empire(by train to Nizhny Novgorod, then along the Kama by steamship to Perm, from there again by train to Yekaterinburg and again by train to Omsk), the young man eventually arrives at a meeting with representatives of the provisional Siberian government, which is not associated with cooperation with the Bolsheviks. This government sends him to the United States to negotiate the supply of radio equipment. Since Omsk was cut off on all sides except the north by the warring factions, Zvorykin joins the Arctic expedition and floats across the Kara Sea by steamer over the course of a half-month along the Irtysh and Ob rivers to the island of Vaygach. At the end of the journey he reaches a radio station located between the islands of Vaygach and Novaya Zemlya and built to report on ice conditions in this part of the ocean. After waiting for the icebreaker, a few weeks later Zvorykin reaches Arkhangelsk, occupied by Entente troops. Having received visas and made stops along the way in Norway, Denmark and England, on the eve of 1919 he finally arrived in the United States.

“Soon after arriving, I found the office of a cooperative organization, to which I owed a business trip and a trip,” the researcher recalls. There, a young engineer is studying radio equipment. But “in the spring, an order was received from the Siberian government for me to return to Omsk. They needed a radio specialist, and I also had to bring some radio equipment parts.” And he goes back. The main map of its route is as follows: Seattle - Yokohama - Vladivostok. And in January 1919, Zvorykin symbolically completed his trip around the world, returning to Omsk, this time through the Pacific Ocean, Japan, Vladivostok and Harbin. An adventure that seemed so incredible that initially Albert Abramson, the biographer of the outstanding inventor, did not believe in the authenticity of Zvorykin’s story.

After some time, Zvorykin - already during the reign of Admiral Kolchak - went to the USA again. This time free from obligations to anyone. Forever. He arrives without recommendations, and, moreover, speaks virtually no English. As a message from his homeland, he brings with him a jar of myrrh, a blessed oil used in church services, which the Russian Orthodox Church asked to be given to the head of the Russian Church in the USA.

The future world genius was lucky: sensing his potential, Zvorykin was initially taken under the wing of the Russian Ambassador to the USA B.A. Bakhmetyev. (The fate of Bakhmetyev himself is noteworthy: the United States is in no hurry to recognize the Bolshevik government, even though the Provisional Government in Russia has long been liquidated. And a former professor at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, Bakhmetyev still manages the activities of the embassy, ​​information bureau and purchasing commission of Russia in the United States.) Zvorykin is enlisted on the staff of the purchasing commission based in New York. In the autobiography, the manuscript of which is kept in the Pittsburgh Museum, you can read: “...Worked as an accountant”.

The newly minted emigrant persistently sends dozens of letters to various companies offering his services as a radio electronics specialist. As a result, he is invited to work at the Westinghouse research laboratory (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). (A large group of emigrants from the former Russian Empire worked at this company. In particular, Stepan Timoshenko, a specialist in the strength of materials, whose books have been translated into many languages.) The young radio engineer’s desire to work in his specialty is so great that, according to historians, he was not I was confused by the size of the salary, half that of the procurement commission. Zvorykin did not immediately have the opportunity to study television in the Pittsburgh laboratory. He worked fanatically: the Westinghouse security guards were ordered by management to send the scientist home if the windows of his laboratory were lit after 2 am.

In 1923, Zvorykin finally got the opportunity to begin implementing the idea of ​​​​creating electronic television. And in the same year, he drew up a patent application in which he fully described the electronic television system. The US Patent Office refused Zworykin on the grounds that the photosensitive plate for the transmitting tube (that is, a television camera) described in the application does not exist in reality and there are serious doubts about the possibility of its creation under existing conditions. Then he takes a time out and completely switches to the official task of Westinghouse - the development of photovoltaic cells, which have begun to be actively introduced in engineering and industrial construction. It was this, as he himself admitted, uninteresting work that made his name known both in Pittsburgh itself (in 1926 the University of Pittsburgh awarded him a doctorate) and beyond.

At the same time, the inventor did not stop doing his work related to television.

“By that time,” he later recalled, “I realized that work on an idea that could lead to commercial success must be camouflaged until the possibility of making a profit became obvious to business people.” In order to move from experiments to pilot production, a representative of large business was needed.

And such a representative appeared in the person of compatriot David Sarnov, President Radio Corporation of America(RCA). Sarnov was born into a poor Jewish family in the town of Uzlyany (modern Belarus) and was brought to the United States by his parents at the age of nine. David Abramovich spoke both Russian and English perfectly; was a completely assimilated American. Behind Sarnov is the path from an ordinary employee of the Marcorni company to the head of a huge corporation.

After talking with Zworykin, he, unlike other American bosses, believed in his ideas and became his boss and patron for many years. Sarnov subsequently recalled that in response to a question about the estimated cost of the project, Zvorykin asked for a “modest” $100,000. In fact, the design work cost a hundred times that amount, and the company began to receive its first income from television when the total investment exceeded $50 million. In 1929, Zvorykin began working at the RCA branch located in Camden (New Jersey). In 1931, he created the final design of the transmitting tube iconoscope, which became the basis for the future electronic television system. After a series of practical tests carried out in Camden, a 2.5 kW television transmitting station is installed on the tallest building in New York - the Empire State Building. RCA factories begin to produce televisions with a picture tube designed by Zvorykin. Residents of New York and surrounding areas within a radius of up to 100 km are becoming the first subscribers to electronic television. By 1933, Zvorykin and his employees completed the creation of an electronic television system. The birth of the television can be dated back to 1933, when Vladimir Zvorykin spoke at the annual conference of the American Society of Radio Engineers. In his report “Iconoscope - a modern version of the electric eye,” the scientist summed up the results of many years of work. He invented a device capable of transmitting the resulting image of an object to the screen of a cathode ray tube, that is, a kinescope. The new development became one of the most outstanding inventions of its time and is deservedly called the “miracle of the twentieth century.”

For the sake of objectivity, we note that not only Zvorykin claimed the title of inventor of television. In the late twenties, yesterday's schoolboy Philo Farnsworth, a self-taught person from Idaho, who, with the support of philanthropists Leslie Gorell and George Everson, founded his own laboratory in San Francisco, is developing a system for transmitting signals at a distance. Farnsworth’s contribution to the creation of electronic TV is “weighty and undeniable,” writes the modern Russian magazine Popular Mechanics. But the Image Dissector of the 1928 model, developed by him, was of little use for creating television equipment. Zworykin managed to do what Philo Farnsworth and his equally talented like-minded friend and competitor, Hungarian Kalman Tihanyi, who filed an application for his invention with the US Patent Office in 1928, failed.

All issues related to the recognition of the priority and authorship of Vladimir Zvorykin are described in detail in the book by television history researcher Albert Abramson. It also says that RCA President David Sarnov, in order to avoid conflicts in this matter and guided by commercial interests, bought his patents from Farnsworth for $1 million. He also acquired the patent of the Hungarian inventor.

In the second half of the 1930s, the threat of war became increasingly obvious. Many leading American corporations receive military orders. During these years, Zvorykin was mainly engaged in the problems of electronic optics, working together with I. Langmuir, J. Morton, L. Malter... Research in the field of electron-optical transformations led to the creation of a night vision device operating in the infrared range. During World War II, night vision devices designed by Zvorykin were used by the US Army to equip tanks and vehicles, and also as sights. It was he who developed the first television-controlled aerial bomb, which had an iconoscope that transmitted a picture to the operator. A little later, it was his laboratory that prepared a night vision device, which was immediately adopted by snipers, tank crews and operators. Albert Abramson, in his voluminous study, writes a lot about guided missiles and underwater torpedoes, developed with the active participation of Vladimir Zvorykin. The list of applications of inventions can be continued endlessly.

Years of living in the USA did not alleviate the homesickness. Vladimir Zvorykin strives to go to Russia. For the management of the RCA company, Zvorykin’s trip to the USSR is seen as an opportunity to receive Russian orders for its products: the United States was experiencing a severe economic crisis - receiving orders for products from other countries was welcomed. Zvorykin himself dreamed of meeting his sisters and brother. A few months before his first trip to the Soviet Union, representatives of the Soviet Union, specialists in the field of radio electronics S.A., visited the company on an official visit. Vekshinsky and A.F. Shorin. In a private conversation, the famous engineer was assured that the Soviet government would “provide him with the most favorable conditions for work and life and guarantee protection from any persecution related to his pre-revolutionary past.”

In August 1933, Zvorykin was in Russia. The report “Television using cathode tubes” in the hall of the Leningrad NTO for Electricians gathers a huge number of specialists. A year later, Zvorykin goes to Russia again. In 1935, RCA concluded a solid agreement with the People's Commissariat of Electrical Industry of the USSR, according to which the Soviet state was supplied with “technological documentation and materials, equipment for the production of electrovacuum devices, equipment for equipping the first Soviet electronic television center, etc.”

In the USSR, Vladimir Zvorykin always received a warm welcome. “Bolsheviks,” writes V.P. Borisov, “they forgave the talented scientist everything: his officer’s shoulder straps, his collaboration with Kolchak, and his flight to the USA...” Stalin’s USSR began industrialization: here they were purposefully interested in acquiring the latest technologies, including the purchase of television equipment. Moreover, the inventor receives a reception from the People's Commissar of Communications of the USSR Rykov.

The first Soviet TV “VK” was created precisely according to Zvorykin’s developments. By the end of 1936, the Leningrad Institute of Telemechanics, which by that time had been transformed into the All-Russian Research Institute of Television, completed the development of an electronic television system. On March 10, 1939, regular television broadcasts began from the Moscow Television Center on Shabolovka, and in 1954, serial production of television receivers was launched at the Kuntsevo Radio Engineering Plant in Moscow.

...The famous inventor was able to visit his homeland again only in 1959.

In 1945, he was actually banned from traveling abroad and was denied a passport. Until the end of the 50s, Zvorykin did not travel. One of the chapters of Albert Abramson's monograph contains detailed information about how the FBI was actively interested in Zworykin since 1943. Why from this moment? In 1943, Zvorykin, who by that time had moved with his laboratory to the most prestigious city from a scientific point of view, Princeton, was approached by activists of the Fund for Relief of War Victims in Russia, which was involved in raising funds for the purchase and sending of food and clothing to the population of the USSR, offering to head the New York branch of this fund. Zvorykin, who in principle had not previously affiliated himself with any parties or movements and was not involved in any social activities, agreed this time. The American Fund for Relief to Victims of the War in Russia, as it became known later, was one of the first on the FBI's list of suspicious organizations and was repeatedly searched at its own headquarters. At the same time, Vladimir Zvorykin in 1943 agreed to head the list of leaders of the New York Science Committee of the Council of American-Soviet Friendship.

Close attention to the life of the famous scientist, a native of Russia, in addition to his social activities, is undoubtedly connected with his growing position in American society. October 26, 1944, the headquarters of the US Air Force appoints Zvorykin as an expert consultant Air Force on scientific issues. Zworykin's laboratory at RCA developed several major military television systems during the war. Zvorykin’s contribution to the technical equipment of the US Army is invaluable.

Albert Abramson's book provides data on the persecution of the inventor and surveillance of him by FBI agents and informants. The author emphasizes that this section of the study was written on the basis of FBI documents, which he used thanks to the famous Freedom of Information Act adopted in 1966. Is it true, most of the information received at his request was obscured, as is customary in cases where there is information of special secrecy. Nevertheless, the chapter of the book devoted to the activities of the inventor during World War II is densely saturated with references to his dossier compiled by the FBI. For example, FBI files contain information that Vladimir Zvorykin, as a member of the science committee of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, asked one of his colleagues at the University of Berkeley (California) to provide a list of scientific literature for Russian scientists. FBI files dating back to August 1944 contain information about Zworykin's property. Information from an informant dated November 18, 1944 indicates that Zvorykin discussed with American colleagues the possibility of creating atomic bomb. The documents, dated November 30, 1944, report that Senator McKee requests that Zworykin's name be added to a special national censorship list in order to send copies of all his correspondence (both internal and external) to a special bureau. Since December 8, 1944, Zvorykin’s telephone in his Princeton apartment has been wiretapped. It was also installed to wiretap the telephone country house. His meetings with Ekaterina Polevitskaya, who later became his wife, also came under surveillance.

The materials published in Abramson's book, in particular, indicate that on February 19, 1945, after pressure from David Sarnov, the head of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover, was forced to write a letter in which he said that Zvorykin had nothing to do with the construction of the atomic bomb. It would seem that this should have ended the FBI's pressure, but it did not end.

In 1945, groups of specialists were formed in the United States to travel through the territory of Germany that had just been occupied by the Allied troops. The goal was to “identify the importance of extant research and industrial developments, identify highly qualified scientists and engineers, etc.” for the purpose of using them in the interests of the United States. Zvorykin, who arrived at Washington airport on April 26, 1945 and was leaving as part of a delegation to Germany, was categorically told that “he was not allowed to leave the United States.”

Vladimir Zvorykin continues to be showered with signs of recognition from the United States: he was awarded a medal. Howard Potts, an Honorary Diploma from the President of the United States, the Lamme Medal and Prize of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Pour Richard Club Gold Medal for outstanding achievements in science, etc. However, the inventor fears for himself, because he believes, as his biographers note, that “scientific merit is weak protection in an atmosphere of pseudo-patriotic frenzy.”

In 1951, a significant event took place in Zvorykin’s personal life. After many years of bachelorhood, he marries Ekaterina Polevitskaya, an emigrant from Russia. The history of their union is significant - they met twenty years before the wedding. Zvorykin was fascinated by the beauty and charm of Polevitskaya, who was married. The marriage proposal followed when Zvorykin learned that Ekaterina Polevitskaya had become a widow. And although both newlyweds had crossed the sixty-year mark by that time, they lived in love and harmony for more than thirty (!) years. His energetic and erudite wife, a doctor by profession, greatly influenced the determination of Zvorykin’s future professional interests. After retiring as director of the RCA Electronics Laboratory in 1954 at the age of 65, his scientific and inventive interests shifted primarily to the field of medical electronics.

Zvorykin’s merits are appreciated so highly that he is awarded the position of honorary vice president of RCA. “The concept of resignation has nothing to do with Vladimir Zvorykin,” Sarnov said in his closing speech at a Princeton University conference specially organized in honor of the outstanding inventor. — A scientist like Zvorykin never resigns. His talent never fades. The imagination and creative instinct of a true scientist lead him to even more extensive knowledge.” That same year, Zworykin began work as director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. To study chemical reactions inside living cells, the talented inventor soon created a unique microscope that reproduces a color image of objects on a television screen. The further development of integrated microelectronics allowed the scientist to implement the idea of ​​endoradiosounding together with doctors. The probe in this method is a miniature radio transmitter tablet, with the help of which “you can obtain data on acidity and other indicators of the internal environment.”

Together with the outstanding mathematician J. von Neumann, Zworykin is developing a new method for forecasting weather changes using weather rockets and computer data processing. Then he takes on the problem of improving traffic safety on expressways and, as a result, creates an experimental model of a radio-controlled safe car. It is significant that in 1954, our eminent compatriot accurately predicted that a person would see the surface of the Moon and other planets precisely with the help of a television, which would be delivered there on board an interplanetary spacecraft.

In addition to working at the Rockefeller Institute, the scientist and inventor begins teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Miami. The International Federation of Medical Electronics and Biological Technology is created, Vladimir Zvorykin is elected president of the federation.

All these years, Vladimir Kozmich carried in his heart love for Russia and his native Murom. In 1967, the Zvorykin couple formalized an Intourist visit to Vladimir. The two of us went to admire the cathedrals. Then, having caught a taxi, we drove to the closed city of Murom. Thanks to his courage, fifty years later Vladimir Zvorykin is again in his hometown near the house where he spent his childhood and adolescence.

Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin - holder of 120 patents, co-author of the books: Television: The Electronics of image transmission (1940, 1954), Electron optics and the electron microscope (1945), Photo electricity and its applications (1949), Television in science and industry (1958). Author of 100 technical articles in professional publications. Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Academy of Engineering, National Chamber of Honor of Inventors of the USA. In 1966 he was awarded the National Medal of Science by US President Lyndon Johnson.

About the death of V.K. Zvorykin in 1983 was reported by all US newspapers.