Engineering Education “Today in History” Blog: First public demonstration of television
by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (862) · January 26th, 2013 · Add a Comment
Today in History – January 26, 1926 – Scottish Engineer John Baird gives first public demonstration of television in London. According to BBC News, his first prototype in 1924 was crudely made of a washstand, a tea chest and a project lamp in a biscuit tin, scanning disks made from carboard and lenses, all held together with srcap wood, darning needles, strings and sealing wax. Nevertheless, he managed to transmit a flickering image for a few feet. On 26 January 1926, he gave the first world’s demonstration to fifty scientists in London. By 1927 he was transmitting an image of over 438 miles between London and Glasgow and started the Baird Television Development Company. Other firsts include: first transmission of a human face in 1925 (see right photo above), first transatlantic television transmission between London and New York in 1928 and first demonstration of color and stereoscopic television.
Baird’s system was amazing in that it was entirely mechanical, but it couldn’t compete against new electronic systems, such as those being developed by Marconi in the United States. Marconi’s approach was ultimately adopted for early television systems, but Baird’s contributions paved the way by introducing the concept and providing the first proof of concept. Prior to this BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was concentrating on radio production because they thought television would be a passing fad. In 1936 they adopted a television service using the electronic television technology developed by Marconi and thus Baird’s contributions are less well known.
Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the color television. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.
Also on this date in 1905, Cullinan Diamond (“Star of Africa”), the largest diamond ever found, is unearthed. On January 26, 1697, Isaac Newton solves Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem, inventing the “calculus of variations”. And in 1992, Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect.
Tags: Electrical Engineering · General Engineering, Engineering Science
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