fbpx

KidsKonnect

Vladimir Zworykin Facts & Worksheets

Vladimir Zworykin was a Russian-American inventor and engineer, best known for his pioneering work on television technology.

Search for Worksheets

Worksheets /People /Scientists /Vladimir Zworykin Facts & Worksheets
Premium
Vladimir Zworykin Worksheets
Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version   Download sample

Vladimir Zworykin was a Russian-American inventor and engineer, best known for his pioneering work on television technology. He had 120 patents, including the iconoscope camera tube and the kinescope picture tube. These were critical to the development of television. He was considered the “Father of Television”.

See the fact file below for more information on the Vladimir Zworykin or alternatively, you can download our 26-page Vladimir Zworykin worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

  • Vladimir Zworykin was born on July 30, 1889, in Murom, Russia, and was the youngest of the surviving seven children, originally twelve, of Kosma A. and Elana Szorykin. His father was the owner of a wholesale grain business and a successful steamship line that made Zworykin’s childhood comfortable.
  • Zworykin entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology in 1910. He studied electrical engineering under Boris Rosing and helped him experiment with a television system called electrical telescopy, which was just a dream during that time.
  • The system consisted of a rotating mirror drum to scan an image and display it through the cathode-ray tube. Rosing filed his patent on a television system in 1907 and held the world’s first demonstration of TV of any kind in 1911.
  • After graduating in 1912, he moved to Paris to study at College de France, studying X-rays under Paul Langevin for two years before World War 1 broke out in 1914, and his studies were interrupted. He returned to Russia to serve as an officer in the Russian Signal Corps.

ZWORYKIN’S CAREER

  • In 1916, after the war, Zworykin married Tatania Vasilieff on April 17, 1916. Zworykin was working at the Russian Marconi company when the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in 1917. Zworykin fled with his wife and settled in the United States in 1919.
  • He worked for Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Pittsburgh on gunnery controls to electronically controlled missiles and automobiles in 1920.
  • He also had the opportunity to experiment on television and, in 1923, filed for a patent in the US for an all-electronic television system, which had cathode ray tubes for both transmitting and receiving images.
  • In 1924, he applied for a patent with modifications on the camera tube, later named iconoscope. The following year, he demonstrated it for some unimpressed executives at Westinghouse. He was told to spend his time on something “a little more useful”.
  • In the same year, Zworykin became a US citizen and obtained his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1926. His dissertation was about improving the output of photoelectric cells.
  • In 1929, he experimented with an improved cathode ray receiving tube and later demonstrated the new receiver named “kinescope”. Still, his bosses were unimpressed.
  • Zworykin decided to join and moved his laboratory to Radio Corporation of America (RCA). They put him in charge of the television department in 1930.
  • The company’s president asked him how much it would cost to perfect his television system. He replied, “about $100,000″. It would be later revealed by Sarnoff that “RCA spent $50 million before we ever got a penny back from TV”.
  • As his work at RCA began, he had an in-house evaluation where they used the kinescope. It performed well with an 80-line definition. However, the television camera system was of a mechanical type.
  • Zworykin’s team decided to adopt a new type of cathode ray transmitter in the iconoscope described in French and British patents of 1928 by Hungarian inventor Kalman Tihanyi.
  • On October 23, 1931, his team improved the iconoscope, which became the first promising experimental transmitter. The new tube was introduced in Germany. With some improvements and using a Farnsworth Image dissector for film transmission, it successfully broadcast the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games to some two hundred public theatres.

PATENT BATTLE WITH FARNSWORTH

  • While Zworykin was attempting to perfect his television system, Philo Farnsworth applied for a patent in 1930 for all-electronic television. There are reports that Zworykin visited Farnsworth lab in April 1930 and Sarnoff a year later.
  • Sarnoff proposed to buy Farnsworth’s company for $100,000. The inventor rejected it even though bankers were looking for an exit. Eventually, they all agreed that Sarnoff’s lowball offer was an insult.
  • Upon Farnsworth’s rejection, Sarnoff decided to bring him to patents court.
  • The legal battle lasted for many years. It slowed down the development of television and its presentation to the public.
  • Farnsworth won the patent battle in 1939, and the court ordered Sarnoff to pay $1 million licensing fees.

OTHER INNOVATIONS

  • During the war, like many other scientists, Zworykin played an essential role in developing new weapons for the military. He directed research work and served on three subcommittees of the National Defense Research Committee.
  • He also served on the Scientific Advisory Board to the Commanding General of the US Army Air Force and the Ordinance Advisory Committee on Guided Missiles.
  • In the mid-1930s, Zworykin continued his work in electronics. He made innovations in the electron microscope. In addition, he developed a sniper scope and snooper scope, which were first used in World War II to see in the dark.
  • Zworykin was also instrumental in developing a device to read print to the blind, the electric eye used in security systems, and automatic door openers.
  • He became a vice president and technical consultant to the Radio Corporation of America Laboratories Division from 1947 to 1954.
  • After his retirement, he continued supporting and developing research. He served as the Director of Medical Research at the Medical Electronics Center at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research until 1962.

PERSONAL LIFE

  • Zworykin’s marriage to Tatiana Vasiellef produced two children but eventually led to divorce. He married his second wife, Katherine Polevitsky, a Russian-born professor of bacteriology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1951.
  • He later lamented how television changed from educational and cultural enrichment to shallow and trivial subjects. Zworykin died a day before his 94th birthday, on July 29, 1982, in Princeton, New Jersey.

AWARDS AND HONORS

  • In 1966, Zworykin received the National Medal of Science awarded by the National Academy of Sciences for his “contributions to the instruments of science, engineering, and television and his stimulation of the application of engineering to medicine”.
  • It is the highest scientific honor in the United States.
  • Additionally, he was awarded a Golden Plate Award  of the American Academy of Achievement in 1967, and inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977.

Vladimir Zworykin Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Vladimir Zworykin across 26 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Vladimir Zworykin worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Vladimir Zworykin who was a Russian-American inventor and engineer, best known for his pioneering work on television technology. He had 120 patents, including the iconoscope camera tube and the kinescope picture tube. These were critical to the development of television. He was considered the “Father of Television”.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Vladimir Zworykin Facts
  • Inventor’s Bio
  • Other Innovations
  • Working in a New Country
  • Zworykin’s Inquiry
  • Development of Television
  • Patent Battle
  • Evolution of Television
  • Allies and Rival
  • Inventor’s Speech
  • Preferred TV Programs

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

Link will appear as Vladimir Zworykin Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, July 20, 2021

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

Related Resources