City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics
City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics
City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics
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284 NOTES TO PAGES 35–39<br />
4. H. C. Saint-René, ‘‘On a solution to the problem <strong>of</strong> remote viewing,’’<br />
Comptes Rendus 150, pp. 446–447 (1910), translation by Jean-Louis Trudel, Oct.<br />
1994.<br />
5. Kaye Weedon found this detail when he examined the packet that Saint-<br />
René had sent to the French Academy; it was not published in Comptes Rendus.<br />
Kaye Weedon, unpublished manuscript.<br />
6. Hubert Masson, letter to author, May 10, 1996. Masson is vice president<br />
<strong>of</strong> the agriculture school and deputy mayor <strong>of</strong> Crezancy.<br />
7. Michael Ritchie, Please Stand By: A Prehistory <strong>of</strong> Television (Overlook Press,<br />
Woodstock, N.Y., 1994, p. 24).<br />
8. See, e.g., R. W. Burns, ‘‘J. L. Baird: success and failure,’’ Proceedings IEE 126,<br />
No. 9, pp. 921–928 (Sept. 1979); Archer S. Taylor, ‘‘Origins <strong>of</strong> British television,’’<br />
CED: Communications Engineering and Design, June 1995, p. 162.<br />
9. J. L. Baird, British Patent 285,738, ‘‘An improved method <strong>of</strong> and means for<br />
producing optical images,’’ filed Oct. 15, 1926, issued Feb. 15, 1928.<br />
10. Ray Herbert, letter to author, Aug. 17, 1994. Herbert worked with Baird.<br />
11. David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher, Tube: <strong>The</strong> Invention <strong>of</strong> Television<br />
(Counterpoint, Washington, D.C., 1996).<br />
12. Jenkins’s importance in early motion-picture development is controversial.<br />
He and Thomas Armat patented a projector called the Phantoscope (US Patent<br />
586,953, issued July 20, 1897) but later split, with Armat obtaining a later patent<br />
on a variant projector. Jenkins insisted he projected the first motion pictures, but<br />
his claims were never verified. Armat claimed he deserved sole credit for inventing<br />
the projector, because the Jenkins-Armat patent was impractical. Armat licensed<br />
his patents to Thomas Edison, leading to the common perception that Edison<br />
invented motion pictures. Edison’s contribution was the camera. See Raymond<br />
Fielding, ed., A Technological History <strong>of</strong> Motion Pictures and Television (University <strong>of</strong><br />
California Press, Berkeley, 1967), especially F. H. Richardson, ‘‘What happened in<br />
the beginning’’ (pp. 23–41). Jenkins’s gift for self-promotion earned him flattering<br />
magazine pr<strong>of</strong>iles: ‘‘<strong>The</strong> original movie man and his first ‘show,’ ’’ <strong>The</strong> Literary<br />
Digest, Apr. 30, 1921, pp. 38–39; Homer Croy, ‘‘<strong>The</strong> infant prodigy <strong>of</strong> our industries:<br />
the birth and growth <strong>of</strong> motion pictures,’’ Harper’s Monthly 135, pp. 349–<br />
357, (Aug. 1917).<br />
13. Wright, ‘‘Successful inventors,’’<br />
14. Hugo Gernsback <strong>of</strong> Radio News (who would soon publish the world’s first<br />
science-fiction magazine) and Watson Davis <strong>of</strong> Popular Radio.<br />
15. Background on Jenkins and his mechanical television systems comes<br />
from Albert Abramson, ‘‘Pioneers <strong>of</strong> television—Charles Francis Jenkins,’’ Journal<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Society <strong>of</strong> Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Feb. 1986, pp. 224–<br />
238.<br />
16. C. Francis Jenkins, US Patent 1,683,137, ‘‘Method <strong>of</strong> and apparatus for<br />
converting light impulses into enlarged graphic representations,’’ filed June 2,<br />
1926, issued Sept. 4, 1928.<br />
17. Technical details from Abramson, ‘‘Pioneers <strong>of</strong> television.’’<br />
18. ‘‘Broadcasts pictures,’’ New York Times, May 6, 1928, p. 3.<br />
19. Ritchie, Please Stand By; (pp. 22–31); for a fuller account, see Fisher and<br />
Fisher, Tube.<br />
20. Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library, State University <strong>of</strong> New York, Stony<br />
Brook, Special Collections Dept.: Clarence Weston Hansell Collection, Collection<br />
209, biographical sketch <strong>of</strong> Hansell.