IEEE History Center: Vladimir Zworykin Abstract

ladimir Zworykin Oral History

This interview is part of the RCA Engineers Collection.

Dr. Vladimir Zworykin's collegiate career at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology in Russia paved the way for his career in electronics. Zworykin received his electrical engineering degree from the Institute in 1912, studying under Professor Boris Rosing, who had built an early cathode ray television in 1908. He began graduate study at the College de France, engaging in X-ray research under Professor Paul Langevin, but returned to Russia at the outbreak of World War I to serve in the Russian Signal Corps. After the war, he emigrated to the United States, and began work at the Westinghouse Electric Company in 1920. He obtained his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1926. He patented his first television camera tube in 1923 and his Kinescope television receiver in 1924. In 1929, he went to work at RCA's Camden, New Jersey laboratory as the director of electronic research. He improved his television camera tube and then patented the Iconoscope in 1931. In 1941 he oversaw James Hillier's invention of the electron microscope. During World War II, he directed military research on aircraft fire control, television-guided missiles, storage tubes, an radar systems. In 1954, upon his retirement from RCA, he was named honorary vice president of the company. He served as director of the Medical Electronics Center of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1954 to 1962. Zworykin died in Princeton, New Jersey in July 1982. This interview briefly traces Zworykin's career, concentrating upon his Iconoscope development for RCA, the first television broadcasts, and his later research in medical electronics. Zworykin discusses television broadcasting's impact, reminisces about his relationship with RCA's CEO David Sarnoff, and assesses television programming for popular entertainment. He also explains his research on an electronic system to control automobiles and on electronic methods of administering anesthesia and acupuncture. The interview concludes with discussing Zworykin's role as founder of the International Federation of Medical Electronics.

Table of Contents

1. Transfer from Westinghouse to RCA Researches WD11 radio amplifying tube
2. First work on television picture tube
3. Contrasts Kinescope and Iconoscope
4. Explains early work in Russia under Professor Boris Rosing
5. Describes own journey from tubes to photocells to sound movies to television
6. First television research group
7. Discusses television's prospects with David Sarnoff
8. Recalls first demonstration of short-distance television Onset of World War II brings focus on military research
9. Television equipment provided to Russia Postwar commercial broadcasting
10. Develops technology for medical electronics
11. Researches electronic applications of anesthesia
12. Investigates electronic methods of administering acupuncture
13. Contrasts electrical to traditional needle acupuncture
14. How electronic acupuncture alters cell-wall permeability
15. Meets Albert Einstein Devises system for controlling automobiles
16. Predicts televising moon exploration
17. Expresses dissatisfaction with television programming
18. States that America's image abroad depends upon American television broadcasts
19. Argues benefits and dangers of video recording
20. Describes human beings as complex electrical machines
21. Founds the International Federation of Medical Electronics