Emigrant Vladimir Kuzmich Zvorykin, inventor of television, died in the USA. Vladimir Zvorykin - the man who dreamed of banning television
Today, hardly anyone can imagine life without television. We learn the latest news from television programs, have fun watching numerous games and shows, cartoons, documentaries and feature films. You can even study using educational programs. However, few people know that all this became possible thanks to the only person in the world - Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin - the true inventor of television as such. Let's figure out who this man was and how his fate turned out, based on objective historical facts.
Zvorykin Vladimir Kozmich: a short biography of a descendant of the Murom merchant
If you look at the Academic Encyclopedia of the United States, or even better, at Grolier (electronic version), you will find that in America the inventor Vladimir Zvorykin is called the “father of television.” This statement is completely true. It is difficult to overestimate his merits, because thanks to them, today there is a TV in almost every home.
Since the seventeenth century, humanity began to think about transmitting images over a distance. Already by the nineteenth century, more than seven different systems of a similar plan were known in the world, which, unfortunately, turned out to be either difficult to implement or inoperative. Only in nineteen hundred and seven, Boris Lvovich Rosing was able to develop a cathode ray tube and a receiver for it. It was this man who became the teacher of the inventor of television, Zvorykin.
Brief description of the activities of the creator of the TV
In early childhood, little Volodya Zvorykin could not even imagine what awaited him in the future. From an early age he was interested in “wires,” as his father used to say. The guy studied hard, showing extraordinary abilities, and at the university he met his inspiration, Rosing. The young man was greatly impressed by his research and trip to various enterprises in other countries, where he was sent by the International Chamber of Commerce. After studying abroad, Vladimir Kozmich returned home, where the February Revolution found him.
As a result, all of his father’s inheritance ended up in the hands of the proletariat, and Zvorykin himself decided to emigrate. The choice fell on the United States, where, after much effort, he finally ended up. Having no funds and virtually no command of the English language, Vladimir Zvorykin got a job at the research laboratory of the Westinghouse Corporation. There he worked on the development of the latest photocells for engineering and construction, which made him famous, but he never left developments in television tubes. When understanding what Zworykin invented, we must not forget about this.
When he started working at RCA, he finally managed to make his dreams come true. He patented new equipment, and the company's factories began to produce the world's first televisions equipped with picture tubes. The first Soviet television, called “VK,” was also created according to Zvorykin’s design. However, he did not stop there: the great scientist has more than a hundred different patents and research articles.
The Birth of the Future Pride of the USA
The father of the future inventor of television, Zvorykin, was a wealthy man, a merchant of the first guild, a grain merchant and a shipowner. Kozma Alekseevich owned the Zvorykin Oka Shipping Company and was the head of the board of a public bank. On June seventeenth, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine, Kozma’s youngest (seventh) child, named Volodya, was born at the family’s estate in Murom.
Kozma Alekseevich had enormous hopes for this screaming baby in swaddling clothes. His eldest son, Nikolai, was never interested in the family business at all. He was only interested in science. Another son, Kostya, later became a metallurgist. Daughters did not count, since they were only expected to have a profitable marriage.
Childhood and youth of the inventor
The elder Zworykin made every effort to train and develop his son, intending to transfer management of affairs to him in his old age. The boy turned out to be smart and efficient. Already at the Murom Real School it became clear that he would be an excellent technician. He studied excellently, and in his spare time he repaired wiring on his father's ships. At the age of sixteen, Vladimir entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, from which he graduated with honors.
In this educational institution, the promising student Volodya met his first inspiration, physics professor Boris Lvovich Rosing. Even then he had several patents (privileges) on “methods of electrically transmitting pictures at a distance.” By the twelfth year of the twentieth century, Volodya became intimate with the teacher, who immediately appreciated the enthusiastic young man. He disappeared for days in the laboratory, where he could be found at any time.
Interesting
While serving in the army and studying at the officer's radio school, Vladimir Kozmich was almost put on trial. One of the soldiers wrote a denunciation against him, allegedly he forced juniors to speak into a “box with a hole.” Fortunately, the members of the commission knew a little about radio technology, so he managed to avoid a tribunal.
After receiving his diploma, Zworykin found himself at a crossroads: his dad insistently demanded that he return to the family business, but Rosing predicted a great future and recommended going to Paris. The College de France and physicist Paul Langevin welcomed him with open arms. Things could have gone well, but war broke out. and had to go home. He had already rushed to the front line near Grodno with a radio transmitter he had personally designed and assembled. Six months later he was sent to Petrograd, where there was a radio school for officers.
The Making of a Television Pioneer
The war raged, he first went to Kyiv, and then, leaving military service, moved to Moscow. But there was no peace there either. As a former tsarist officer, they tried to draft him into the Red Army, but Zvorykin was no longer going to fight. At his own peril and risk, he rushed to Omsk, the White Guard capital. There he was received cordially and even helped to prepare papers to travel to the United States to purchase parts of the radio station. Since all the normal routes were already blocked by the Bolsheviks by that time, we had to get there in a roundabout way, through the island of Veygach and Arkhangelsk.
First work and justification in the United States of America
In 1919 he came back to Omsk, where Kolchak was stationed by that time. But he was returning through Japan, circumnavigating the Earth. It turned out that Volodya was wandering overseas in vain, since the radio station was available locally, but careless officials did not even know about its existence. Soon he was again given the documentation and sent on a new business trip to America, but they promised to send money in return, and upon arrival he suddenly discovered that in Omsk they had already fired him with the wording “for idleness.”
Vladimir Kozmich was indignant, began to demand a trial, and curse. He achieved success, but Kolchak's government soon crumbled into dust, and his career in public service sank into oblivion. Vladimir Zvorykin was left in the United States without work and livelihood. No one knows how everything could have turned out if not for the ambassador of Tsarist Russia to America, Boris Aleksandrovich Bakhmetyev. He helped financially and also got him a job at a large Westinghouse Electric laboratory in Pittsburgh. There he settled and returned to his favorite job, because he was an engineer, and the laboratory with all the necessary equipment provided simply unlimited possibilities.
The invention of electronic television and other discoveries
Already by the twenty-third year, Vladimir managed to create a transmitting tube, which he decided to call an iconoscope. He decided that it was not worth amplifying the output signal if it could accumulate charge. Things got better when he used capacitors. The quality of the picture was ridiculously low, and the author of the project himself openly skeptically called it “television.” Not impressed by the works of the Russian inventor, the authorities ordered him to get down to business - work on sound film projects. However, in the same year he received a patent for an iconoscope, and a year later - for a receiving kinescope.
In nineteen twenty-four, Vladimir Kozmich achieved citizenship and entered the University of Pittsburgh. They accepted people up to thirty-five, so I had to carefully knock off a year for myself. Two years later he was already a Doctor of Science in physics in the field of photocells. There he managed to develop and launch the first electronic high-speed fax. But that’s not what he wanted at all - he needed money for television. They appeared unexpectedly, along with millionaire David Sarnov in the twenty-eighth. He was also a Russian emigrant, but left his homeland at the age of eight. Zvorykin requested one hundred thousand dollars for development. In reality, it took about fifty million, but Sarnov never regretted the invested funds - they returned to him a hundredfold.
I had to leave Pittsburgh, there were not enough opportunities there, and David called to join his corporation. The Zvorykin family moved to Camden, located in New Jersey. There, Vladimir got a job at the Radio Corporation of America, where he made his main discoveries, designed the long-awaited televisions, and was even able to put them on the production line. In the mid-summer of '33, he gave a lecture at a meeting of the American Society of Radio Engineers. This was a turning point, he began to be invited to perform all over the world. At the same time, he was invited to the Soviet Union, promising to “forget” about his counter-revolutionary past, as well as his “shameful” flight abroad.
At home he was greeted like a real king: Lavrentiy Beria himself shook hands, allocated a plane for the trip to Crimea, offered to instantly organize all the documentation, equip the laboratory and create ideal conditions for work. The Union even released a “Zvorykin TV” called “VK”. However, Vladimir Kozmich did not dare to change his American passport to a Soviet one. He returned to the States and continued his work, and already in the forties, almost by accident, he split the light beam into red, green and blue. This became the starting point of new work - color television as we know it clearly loomed ahead. At the same time, together with researcher James Hillier, he developed a sensitive electron microscope, and during World War II he even worked on creating an aerial bomb equipped with a “television guidance” system and night vision systems. He subsequently helped John von Neumann connect his computing machine and his television, creating the first computer.
Public recognition in the USA and the world
In the fifties, after the end of the Great Patriotic War, Zvorykin dreamed of visiting his homeland, but his passport was revoked. American intelligence agencies considered him an agent of Soviet intelligence, and in the Union they were firmly convinced that he was an “American henchman” filled to the brim with imperialist ideology. Therefore, next time he was not able to visit the “house” and see his relatives soon.
In fifty-four he retired and took up medical development for his own pleasure. Moreover, he managed to develop a lot of useful equipment: from endoscopes to super-powerful microscopes and even radiosondes. It is impossible to say that he was underestimated; at different times he received many state awards in America.
- In 1934, Vladimir Zvorykin was awarded an award from the Institute of Radio Engineers called the Morris Liebmann Award.
- The American Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded him the Rumford Prize in 1941.
- The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia awarded Zworykin the Howard Potts Medal in 1947.
- A year later, he was awarded the Lamme Medal, which was awarded by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers for outstanding achievements.
But it was recognized not only in the States, but also far beyond its borders. In 1980, the private German foundation Eduard-Rhein-Stiftung presented a new award for achievements in science and culture. The first winner of the Eduard Rein Ring of Honor was Vladimir Zvorykin. After him, only nine people in the world received the same award, including German electrical engineer Walter Bruch, Japanese engineer Ibuka Masaru and even the first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.
Personal life and death of the father of television: perpetuation of memory
From early childhood, the life of Vladimir Kozmich was eventful and difficult. He traveled a lot around the world, visited many countries, and in his declining years he even managed to become disillusioned with his invention - television. In an interview, he frankly said that he had released “a monster capable of brainwashing all of humanity.” It was no longer possible to stop the running flywheel; the inventor had no control over it.
Wives and children
In his personal life, Zvorykin was no less “lucky” than in his work. He first married in nineteen sixteen, even before the October Revolution. His heart was captivated by a dental school graduate, Tanechka Vasilyeva, about whom little is known. Despite the fact that the marriage lasted fourteen years, it is difficult to call it happy. In the seventeenth, Tanya went to Berlin, from where Volodya took her to America only in the twentieth, and then he was constantly on the road. In 1930, he filed for divorce so that “a demanding family would not interfere with his research.” Tatyana gave birth to her wife two lovely daughters.
- Nina (1920).
- Elena (1927).
Vladimir was not destined to remain alone for the rest of his life, and the second love story in his life turned out to be much more romantic than the pragmatic first marriage. He met his second wife around the same time he divorced his first. Ekaterina Andreevna Polevitskaya was a professor of microbiology, and above all, she was “deeply” married. The husband resisted and did not give the woman a divorce for two decades, but he died in 1950, after which Vladimir Kozmich decided to get married without delay. It is clear that at that age the couple never had children.
Death and memory of the creator of television
Having lived a long and eventful life, Vladimir Zvorykin, the inventor of television, the electron microscope and many other devices, died on July twenty-ninth, nineteen eighty-two. He was fully ninety-two years old, but until the last moment he remained of sound mind and solid memory, wrote scientific works, articles in magazines and simply memoirs. It is believed that his ashes were scattered over the American lake Taunton lake, not far from his country house. How true this is is not known for certain, but there is no reason not to believe this version.
There are five known books written by Vladimir Kozmich, published during the period from thirty-six to fifty-eight. In two thousand and thirteen, a monument was erected to him on the Ostankino pond in Moscow, and a little later another monument was erected in the inventor’s homeland in Murom. There is a memorial plaque on the building of the real school from which he graduated, and a street in the town of Gusev is named after him. In two thousand and ten, a documentary film about this great man called “Zvorykin-Muromets” was released, directed by Russian researcher, actor, TV presenter and journalist Leonid Gennadievich Parfenov.
Outstanding American engineer of Russian origin, “father of television” Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin(1888-1982) was born in an old and wealthy merchant family. His father, Kozma Alekseevich, was a merchant of the first guild, was engaged in the grain trade, owned a shipping company, and headed the Murom Public Bank. The Zworykin family had seven children (two sons and five daughters); Vladimir was the youngest. Because Kozma Alekseevich was busy, the children saw their father infrequently; Household affairs were managed by my mother, Elena Nikolaevna, who also came from the extensive Zvorykin family.
Vladimir Zvorykin attended primary school, then a secondary school. He studied easily and with enthusiasm. Already in his youth, Vladimir Zvorykin had a penchant for technology. In high school, he especially liked physics. Since his older brother Nikolai did not have much interest in entrepreneurship, his father involved Vladimir in the family business from the age of 10 and gave him instructions. After graduating with honors from a real school in 1906, Vladimir Zvorykin studied for some time at the physics department of St. Petersburg University, but was soon transferred to the St. Petersburg Technological Institute. Here he made a fateful acquaintance with the inventor of television, Professor Boris Lvovich Rosing, whose assistant in experiments with “electrical foresight” he was for about two years. Television became Zvorykin’s dream and his life’s work.
In 1912, V.K. Zvorykin graduated with honors from the Technological Institute and received the right to an internship in Europe. The father, of course, wanted his son to continue the family business, and it was decided that this would be the case - only later. The internship began in Paris at the Collège de France with the outstanding physicist Paul Langevin and continued in Berlin at the Charlottenburg Institute, but the First World War came. Through Denmark, Zvorykin came to Russia, where he was drafted into the army. For a year and a half, Private Zvorykin served at a military radio station in Grodno, then received an officer rank and became a teacher at the Officer Electrical Engineering School in, and was a military representative at the Petrograd plant “Russian Society of Wireless Telegraphs and Telephones” (ROBTiT). Since the fall of 1917, Zvorykin served in an artillery unit, which was stationed near Kyiv before being sent to the front.
The Civil War began, and in April 1918 Zvorykin arrived in Murom, where sad news awaited him - the family house was requisitioned, his father died (a few months later his mother would also die). His reluctance to participate in the Civil War and the need to put his ideas into practice led him to the decision to leave Russia. Zvorykin with great difficulty reached, which was the center of the White movement. In Siberia, he was instructed to restore trade relations with a number of foreign countries and purchase machinery and equipment, including for a radio station in Omsk. Zvorykin went on a business trip - he got to the North, then on an icebreaker to Arkhangelsk, and from there to New York. In the spring of 1919, Zvorykin, having completed his assignment, returned to Omsk through the Pacific Ocean, Japan and Vladivostok, where he received a new assignment and again left for the United States.
During the second business trip, the Kolchak government dismissed Zvorykin from service. From now on, his fate was connected with America. One of the problems was that Vladimir Kozmich practically did not speak English. His strong Russian accent remained with him throughout his life. V.K. Zvorykin first worked as an accountant in New York, then, from 1920, in Pittsburgh at the Westinghouse research laboratory, where he began working on the creation of an electronic television system. He called the electronic transmitting television tube “iconoscope” (from the Greek words “ikon” - picture and “skop” - to see), and the receiving tube - “kinescope” (from the Greek “kineo” - to move).
In 1924 Zworykin became a US citizen, and in 1926 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Meanwhile, the management of the Westinghouse company did not see any prospects for Zvorykin’s work in the field of electronic television. At the beginning of 1929, V.K. Zvorykin met with an emigrant from Russia, David Sarnov, vice president of RCA (Radio Broadcasting Corporation of America), who believed in the success of television. Vladimir Kozmich went to work at RCA as the head of the television laboratory in Camden (from 1934 he became the head of the electronics laboratory, from 1947 - vice president of RCA). In 1933, together with his group of specialists, he completed the development of an electronic television system and spoke in Chicago at the annual conference of the American Society of Radio Engineers with a report on the iconoscope. After this, the name Zvorykin became widely known throughout the world.
In 1936, the first electronic television suitable for practical use was developed in Zvorykin’s laboratory, and in 1939 D. Sarnov organized regular television broadcasting in the USA. In 1941-1942, V.K. Zvorykin, together with the RCA laboratory, moved to Princeton (New Jersey). In 1954 he became honorary vice president of RCA and director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute in New York.
For his fruitful work, Zvorykin was awarded many awards and prizes. A significant part of his ideas were implemented. He played an important role in the development of color television, electron microscopy, fax communications, night vision devices, remote control, medical electronics, etc. As a scientist, Vladimir Kozmich was distinguished by a great spirit of creativity, broad imagination and intuition. He always worked with great enthusiasm and perseverance.
V.K. Zvorykin visited the USSR several times (the first time in 1933). Thanks to agreements with RCA, in 1938 the Soviet Union put into operation the first electronic television transmitting station and began production of TK-1 televisions. In 1967, Zvorykin managed to visit his native Murom, which was closed to foreigners.
V.K. Zvorykin was married twice: the first wife was Tatyana Vasilyeva, the second wife was Ekaterina Andreevna Polevitskaya; daughters: Nina and Elena. In his home life, he largely remained a Russian person. He loved receiving guests, skating, and hunting. One of his hobbies was flying an airplane. In the last years of his life, Zvorykin began to have a somewhat negative attitude towards his brainchild - television, believing that it leads to unified thinking. V.K. Zvorykin died in Princeton. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered over his beloved Taunton Lake, not far from his country home.
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 - the National Prize 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 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.)
Although a little earlier he explained the need to promote Zvorykin as the image of the son of a merchant from Murom, who invented television, as a correct role model, in general Surkov noted the low demand for innovation among companies and the lack of habit of people being closely interested in the material world. Surkov considers Russians (including himself) to be more “holistic,” that is, an integral type of personality. However, if there is nothing new in this, then in another statement of Surkov there is: we do not have the habit of migration and tolerance towards eccentrics, while in America they have learned to appreciate the ability of people to think differently, since they are the ones who often invent what something new. And it’s okay if somewhere in Skolkovo an artist lies on the lawn, Surkov noted dreamily, and everyone internally agreed with him too.
“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 there was no reason to expect a return to normal conditions, in particular for research work, in the near future. 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 in the 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 such work you need to go to another country, and America seemed to me to be such a country.”
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 the 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 his 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 give 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 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 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, 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, 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. On October 26, 1944, the headquarters of the US Air Force appointed Zvorykin as an expert consultant to the 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. True, most of the information received at his request was obscured, as is customary in cases of special secrecy information. 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 an 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. The telephone in the country house was also wiretapped. 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 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. 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.
In 1938, the famous aircraft designer Sikorsky was entrusted with giving a speech to his compatriots on the occasion of the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus'. Referring to Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Solovyov, their no less famous compatriot admonished: “The Russian people should not think about how to turn back to what did not stand, apparently was not saved, but think about how to get out of that swamp, in which we are now stuck, get out onto the broad road to move forward.”
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.
It was 85 years ago, on April 7, 1927, that the American scientist Herbert Ives managed to organize the first public television broadcast over a long distance. Then viewers in New York saw an image of the future US President, still just Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, transmitted from New Jersey. The Americans were terribly proud of their new product and somehow did not particularly spread the fact that its father was a Russian with an unpronounceable surname - Zworykin.
I just want to start this story with the words: “In the glorious city of Murom, there lived a rich merchant Kozma Alekseevich. He had a beloved child - his son Volodymyr.” Well, if you want, then let’s start like that, and then we’ll move on as we do today. For the story is about the man who created our electronic today.
Vladimir, in the family of a grain merchant, owner of the Oka Shipping Company Zvorykin, chairman of the board of the Murom Public Bank, merchant of the first guild Kozma Zvorykin, was the youngest of seven children. However, it was with him that my father pinned all his business hopes. The eldest son Nikolai did not show any interest in the affairs of his father’s company and was completely passionate about science, just like his uncles, Nikolai Alekseevich, who died early, and Konstantin Alekseevich, who later became a famous scientist and metallurgist. Five daughters did not count, so when on July 29, 1888, the wife brought the merchant his long-awaited second son, he considered him a gift from God and from early childhood began to attach him to business, mainly shipping business. The smart boy liked this, although he was more interested not in boring office books, which meticulously listed cargo, routes, income and expenses, but in sophisticated ship technology. As a boy, he already repaired ship alarms, ran electric bells he made at home, and tried to understand the operation of machines and mechanisms.
In 1906, Vova graduated from the Murom Real School and left his hometown for St. Petersburg. Where he quickly entered St. Petersburg University. The father, who learned about this, became seriously alarmed, suspecting that this son would also be drawn into science, and demanded that he transfer to a more down-to-earth Technological Institute. The young man did not dare to disobey his parent. It cannot be said that the translation was to his detriment. In any case, he met one of the Russian enthusiasts who was trying to learn how to transmit images over a distance, Professor Boris Lvovich Rosing, there.
Work in the field of “far-sighting” even then excited the minds of many scientists in all parts of the world. The most promising was considered “mechanical television,” in which rays of light hit a photocell through a special “Nipkow disk” with holes cut in a spiral. With its help, the image on the screen was also formed. The disadvantage of the design was the extremely low clarity, which depended on the number of holes. However, Rosing adhered to a different, extremely dubious and unpromising concept of “electronic television”. It was clear to all scientists that a “point” pulse of millionths of a second could not cause any noticeable result in a photocell, and it was precisely such pulses that the “electronics engineers” were based on. They diligently tried to strengthen the signal, assuring everyone that only with the help of their technology could high-definition images be achieved. Trying hard, but to no avail.
By the end of his studies, Volodya Zvorykin became Professor Rosing’s favorite student and spent almost all his time in his laboratory. In 1912, he graduated from the institute with excellent grades, received a diploma of “technological engineer” and the right to continue his studies abroad. His father demanded his return to Murom, but Rosing advised the promising young man to go to Paris, to the College de France to the famous physicist Paul Langevin. Zvorykin listened to the professor.
But I didn’t manage to study in France for a long time. In 1914, the war began, Volodya returned to Russia and was immediately mobilized into the army. At first he was sent to the signal troops in Grodno, where he arrived with a radio transmitter he built with his own hands, but after a year and a half he was promoted to second lieutenant and transferred to the Petrograd officer radio school. By that time, he had already married Tatyana Vasileva, a student at the dental school. After the February Revolution, the young officer was almost court-martialed following a denunciation from a soldier who claimed that he had abused his subordinates, forcing them to “talk into a box with a hole.” Fortunately, the members of the tribunal knew a little about radio electronics and knew that the “hole” is also called a “microphone.”
The situation became increasingly tense. In order to do what he loved, Zvorykin was forced to first transfer to Kyiv, then, after taking off his military uniform, move to Moscow. Vladimir’s wife left for Berlin, but he decided not to leave his homeland, hoping for a quick end to the “troubled times.” In Moscow, as a former officer, they first tried to draft him into the Red Army, and when he did not appear at the commissariat, they decided to arrest him altogether. Having learned from a policeman he knew that a warrant had been issued for him, Vladimir decided not to play with fate and escape to Omsk, the Siberian capital of the white movement.
On the way, in Yekaterinburg, he was arrested and put in prison as a “suspicious person.” Fortunately, the city was soon captured by the Czechs, who had no complaints against Zvorykin. In Omsk, the White Guard government greeted the young radio engineer cordially. Communication issues were a priority, and Zvorykin was immediately provided with documents for a trip to America, where he was instructed to purchase the equipment necessary to build a powerful radio transmitter. The scientist-engineer, who temporarily turned into a sales agent, got down to business with enthusiasm. And the first thing was to get to America. Since all normal routes were blocked by the Bolsheviks, Zvorykin first had to move north, along the Irtysh and Ob, through the Kara Sea, to the island of Vaygach, from there on an icebreaker to Entente-occupied Arkhangelsk, there obtain a visa and sail further, through Norway, Denmark and England. The whole journey took several months. Having quickly completed all the given instructions, despite his disgusting knowledge of the English language, Vladimir returned to Omsk in 1919, but through Japan, Vladivostok and Harbin, thus circumnavigating the globe.
By that time, Admiral Kolchak had settled in the capital of Siberia. A brilliant military leader, he was a useless administrator, and therefore all the authorities, with their huge bureaucratic system of office work, were exactly copied by him from those that operated in the empire destroyed by the Bolsheviks. But what at least somehow worked in peacetime conditions was completely unsuitable before wartime. Nevertheless, officials in the Omsk ministries worked calmly and leisurely for six hours a day, went to theaters in the evening, intrigued for “warm” places and were in no hurry to show any initiative in any case. Every case dragged on for many weeks and months, while the Bolsheviks made decisions almost instantly. It’s funny and sad: as it turned out later, Zvorykin’s business trips were a waste of money and time, since the necessary radio station in Siberia already existed at that time, but officials did not even ask the question of finding the necessary facility.
Soon after arriving in Omsk, Zvorykin was again provided with documents, instructions and again sent to the United States. True, they didn’t give me the money, promising to transfer it at the first opportunity. It took him a month and a half to get to New York, arrived there on June 19, immediately began active work, and on August 1, almost by accident, he learned that he had been fired for a month “for idleness.” As it soon became clear, the Minister of Trade and Industry Tomashevsky, who sent Zvorykin on a business trip, was dismissed, and now the official who had caught him was urgently changing his team. Outraged by such injustice, the sales agent wrote in his defense: “With the greatest energy on my part, I could only arrive in New York on the evening of June 19th and send the first telegram with information to Omsk on June 27th...
Dismissal from the Civil Service clearly discredits my name, I will allow myself to briefly outline below the history of my business trip and my work and ask for an investigation to be ordered against me and, in the absence of any crimes of an official or other nature on my part, for the rehabilitation of my name. .. First of all, dismissal from the Civil Service under the pretext of clearly disrespectful, without trial or investigation, as is known, has a certain imprint that leaves a stain on a person and which can only be washed away either by a judicial investigation or by annulment.” Zvorykin was supported by employees of the Russian missions, who saw how diligently the young agent carried out the assignments assigned to him. Finally, in early October, the case was decided in his favor. They even decided to transfer Vladimir to the supply department of the Northern Sea Route, which was a clear promotion. But at the end of October, the Kolchak government fell, and this was the end of Vladimir Zvorykin’s trading activities. There was no one to buy for, and Vladimir happily remembered his engineering education.
The Russian ambassador, the famous hydrodynamics scientist Boris Aleksandrovich Bakhmetyev, helped him get a job at the Pittsburgh research laboratory of Westinghouse Electric. The engineer moved to Pittsburgh with his wife and newborn daughter Nina, who had come to join him. In the laboratory, Vladimir remembered his television past and by 1923 he had made the first transmitting electron tube, which he called an “iconoscope.” He decided not to amplify the weak signal, but to accumulate charge. To do this, Zvorykin, together with his assistants, manually “paved” the receiving element with microscopic capacitors. Now the resulting charge was already enough to transmit the image, but the quality left much to be desired. To such an extent that Zworykin himself, always distinguished by an enviable sense of humor, called his “television” “elevision”. But the scientist firmly believed that all this was just the beginning and all the shortcomings could be overcome, with proper funding. However, his superiors did not think so and, coldly assessing the results of many years of work, ordered him to abandon his useless projects and do something more useful for the company. The inventor had to agree and from now on, during working hours, he would work on equipment for sound cinema. But he nevertheless filed a patent application, first for the transmitting “iconoscope”, and a year later for the receiving “kinescope”.
In 1924, Zvorykin received American citizenship and entered the University of Pittsburgh as an applicant. Since for this he had to be under the age of 35, he knocked off one year in the entrance documents. As a result of this simple hoax, Americans celebrated the 100th and 120th anniversaries of their hero a year later than expected. In 1926 he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in physics for his work in the field of photovoltaic cells. Soon the scientist managed to create a high-speed fax in his laboratory. But his thoughts were still directed towards television, for the creation of which he lacked just a little - money.
In 1928, Zvorykin finally managed to find a wealthy investor. He became a millionaire, vice-president of the newly created Radio Corporation of America (RCA), conditional Russian emigrant David Sarnov. Conditional - because his parents brought him to the United States as an 8-year-old child. Many years later, seeing Zvorykin off to retire, he said: “27 or 28 years ago I first met this young man who spoke with the same terrible accent as today. He enthusiastically told me about the cathode ray tube he had invented, about the great prospects and possibilities of using it in practice - about the creation of electronic television... I admit, I understood almost nothing from that first story about his invention, but I was very impressed by this man... just fascinated by his persuasiveness. I asked:
Taking into account everything you say, how much money would you need to allocate to put your ideas into practice? How much money do you need to spend to get a really working television system?
He looked at me slyly, took a deep breath and answered very confidently:
I think $100 thousand would be enough.
I already understood then that a working television system, of course, costs 100 thousand. Just how right he was became clear only now. We spent nearly $50 million before we made even one penny back from selling the first televisions. But who today can say that we spent this money in vain? I can confidently say that Zworykin is the best seller of ideas I have ever known.”
Soon Zvorykin already went to work at RCA, and moved with his family to the city of Camden (New Jersey). By that time, his wife gave him another daughter, Elena. However, the family idyll did not last long: in 1930, Vladimir divorced Tatyana. But the research work developed with increasing success. Already by the beginning of the 1930s, Zworykin managed to convince the majority of “television people” that the most promising was the completely electronic television he created and patented. The main turning point was a lecture on electronic television systems that the scientist gave in June 1933 at a conference of the American Society of Radio Engineers.
Doctor Zworykin began to be invited to give lectures at leading universities in the world, and soon was invited even to the USSR. Where they made it clear that if he stayed, he would not only be forgiven for his counter-revolutionary past, but would also be provided with everything a scientist could desire. He was taken around the country and had meetings with leading scientists and politicians. Lavrentiy Beria, who was then only the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, having learned that the scientist wanted to look at the Black Sea, provided him with a military aircraft for this. In the USSR, Vladimir met with his sisters, from whom he asked for advice on whether he should stay in the Land of the Soviets. To which one of their husbands gave the scientist very sensible advice. The gist of it was that as long as Vladimir had an American passport in his pocket, they would fiddle with it and please him. But after he exchanges it for a “red-skinned passport” the situation can change dramatically. Therefore, it is best for Volodya not to tempt fate and return to the USA. Time has shown how right this relative was.
In 1933, Zvorykin created the first high-definition television system with a 240-line scan. This crazy figure was increased to 343 lines within a year, and in 1936 regular television broadcasts designed for Zavorykin systems began in the USA. In 1935, Vladimir visited the USSR again. Now the result of the trip was the conclusion of an agreement on the supply of television equipment between RCA and the People's Commissariat of the Electrical Industry.
But, of course, living on television, Zvorykin lived not only on it. In 1938, he, together with Canadian scientist James Hiller, created the first high-resolution electron microscope. During World War II, his laboratory was engaged in the creation of television guidance systems for aerial bombs and night vision devices. Together with the father of computers, John von Neumann, he tried to develop computational methods for predicting weather and dreamed of combining a television and an electronic computer.
For his participation in the New York fund for helping victims of the war in the USSR, the FBI, during the period of rampant McCarthyism, deprived him of his international passport, making him virtually prohibited from traveling abroad for some time. US intelligence agencies considered the scientist an agent of Moscow and for a long time tapped his phone, trying to convict him of counter-American activities. In the USSR, on the contrary, he was considered an “American henchman.”
In 1951, Dr. Zvorykin married for the second time, now to Ekaterina Andreevna Polevitskaya, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, their romance lasted for more than two decades, but the lovers could not formalize their relationship, since Catherine’s first husband did not give her a divorce. In 1954, Vladimir resigned as head of the RCA laboratory and became interested in medical electronics. This obviously could not have happened without the influence of his beloved wife. Having become director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, he created many electronic medical devices: microscopes, endoscopes, radiosondes. Many scientists believe that it was Zvorykin’s work at this center that laid the foundation for such a scientific direction as bioengineering.
Together with his wife, he visited the Soviet Union 8 more times, met with relatives, talked with scientists, and gave lectures. And he suffered greatly from the fact that he was not allowed into Murom, which was closed to foreigners. Finally, in the late 1960s, while visiting Vladimir, he simply “got lost,” took a taxi and headed back to his hometown. To my father’s house, to the old church of St. Nicholas of the Naberezhny, to the cemetery where my parents are buried...
Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin died in 1982, on his birthday. He turned 94 years old. A few hours before his death, he gave his last telephone interview, in which he said that he was dying of old age. His wife survived him by a year.
Zvorykin owns 120 patents. He wrote more than 80 scientific papers, was an honorary member of many academies and scientific societies, and a holder of many orders and medals. In 1967, US President Lyndon Jones awarded the Russian-speaking American the US National Medal of Science. In 1977, the name of Vladimir Zvorykin was included in the US National Chamber of Fame for Inventors. In the American ranking “1000 years - 1000 people” his name is included in the top hundred, along with the names of Peter I, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Lenin, Stalin and Gorbachev.
And his biggest mistake, although already in his later years, he called the invention of... television.
“I created a monster capable of brainwashing all of humanity,” he said. - This monster will lead our planet to unified thinking... You evaluate reality by those you see on the screen, who you listen to.
Sometimes you argue with them, object and even seem to win the argument. But this is only an appearance. The main one is the invisible one who presses the buttons. It is he who determines who to show and what to say to achieve his goals. From hundreds of speakers, he, invisible, chooses those who need him, and not you, me or the truth. He chooses those who drag you into talking about nonsense instead of discussing the essence of the matter. ... I would never let my children even go near the TV. It's terrible what they show there. ... Although, of course, there are details in it that worked out especially well for me. The best one is the switch.
Zvorykin Vladimir Kozmich - scientist, inventor in the field of electronics. Zworykin invented the “miracle of the 20th century” - electronic television. His innovative ideas were also used in the creation of electron microscopes, photomultipliers and electron-optical converters
Born on July 30, 1888 in Murom, Vladimir province. After graduating from a real school, he entered St. Petersburg University in 1906, but at the insistence of his father he soon transferred to the Technological Institute. Here a meeting took place that largely determined Z.’s scientific interests: he met Professor B. Rosing, the author of innovative works on electronic transmission of images over a distance. In 1912, Zvorykin graduated from the Technological Institute, receiving a diploma with honors, which gave him the right to go on a scientific internship in one of the European laboratories. For a year, Vladimir Kozmich studied X-ray diffraction at the Collège de France, then went to Germany to take a course in theoretical physics at the Charlottenburg Institute.
The 1st World War interrupted Zvorykin’s scientific studies; he returned to Russia, where he was drafted into the army. For a year and a half he served in the signal troops in Grodno, then worked at the officer radio school in Petrograd. In 1917, on the instructions of the Provisional Government, he established a radio station for communication between the Tauride Palace and Kronstadt, then returned to work at ROBTiT. At the end of the year, the plant was evacuated to Moscow: the Germans were breaking through to the capital, and this important defense enterprise had to be transferred from Petrograd to a safer place.
In 1919 he emigrated to the USA. Zvorykin was given the opportunity to try his hand at Westinghouse Electric in Pittsburgh. Plunging headlong into experiments, he began to implement the ideas of electronic television that had long been nurtured. By 1923, Vorykin created a television device, the basis of which was an original transmitting tube with a mosaic photo code. The capabilities of the developed equipment were, however, still very limited. Gradually moving towards his intended goal, by 1929 he designed a high-vacuum receiving tube - a kinescope, and developed a number of other elements for electronic television equipment. Zvorykin’s fundamental invention, which made it possible to solve the main problem in the development of television technology, was the creation of a transmitting cathode ray tube with charge accumulation and high photosensitivity. Zvorykin received in 1931 a special cathode ray tube with a mosaic photosensitive structure - an iconoscope. After successful testing of the iconoscope, Zvorykin, together with his assistants, began developing the television system as a whole. In 1933, a television system with 240 lines was created, and in 1934 - with 343 lines with interlaced scanning. In 1936, television broadcasts using such a system began in the United States.
In the second half of the 30s, Zvorykin was mainly concerned with problems of electron optics. Since 1939, Zvorykin, together with his assistant J. Hillier, has been developing electron microscopes, achieving significant results in a short time. During the Second World War, night vision devices designed by Zvorykin were used by the US Army to equip tanks and vehicles, and also as sights.
In 1954, Zworykin retired from his position as director of the electronics laboratory at RCA. His merits are so great that he is given the position of honorary vice president of RCA. Zvorykin began active organizational and scientific activities. He was director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute, founding president of the International Federation of Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering, and a member of professional medical electronics groups established in the United States and France.
Vladimir Kozmich was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Engineers, the American Philosophical Society, and an honorary member of many academies and scientific societies. He owns over 120 patents and more than 80 scientific papers. Z. was called a “gift to the American continent.” He has received more than 30 awards (including the US National Medal of Science, the Pioneer Award of the American Association of Manufacturers, the Presidential Certificate of Honor, the French Legion of Honor, etc.). Z.'s inventive and scientific activities were noted by the inclusion of his name in the American National Gallery of Fame for Inventors.
