Farnsworth and Bell Labs

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
Post Reply
User avatar
Nicolas Krause
Posts: 230
Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:36 pm
Real name: Nicolas Krause
Location: Canada
Contact:

Farnsworth and Bell Labs

Post by Nicolas Krause »

I found an interesting tidbit in an oral history given by John R. Pierce about his time at Bell Labs.
LYLE : I want to talk about research in the Bell Labs and how that’s done. That is, when you
first started there, you were working with vacuum tubes. Who decides what problems will be
worked on?
PIERCE : That’s very different then and now. I was told to do research on vacuum tubes. People
sort of just left me alone. They did suggest that I go and see Philo Farnsworth, who was working
on electron multipliers and television pick-up tubes, but I was left pretty much to myself. This
was very, very confusing to me. I didn’t know what to do.
John R. Pierce would go on to do important work on the travelling wave tube and do a large amount of work on Klystron's. I had not known that Philo Farnsworth had worked at Bell Labs, and it's fascinating to seem him always in the background with these developments of vacuum tube devices.
User avatar
Richard Hull
Moderator
Posts: 14992
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 9:44 am
Real name: Richard Hull

Re: Farnsworth and Bell Labs

Post by Richard Hull »

I am sure that Farnsworth never worked at Bell Labs. Pierce was suggested to go to Farnsworth, wherever he was located, to see what he was working on. This is much like Zworykin coming to Farnsworth from RCA to see what he was up to. Farnsworth was making a name for himself in unusual vacuum tube design.

Farnsworth labs created the famous IP25 and the later 6026/6032 infrared sniper scope tube of WWII. I have a couple here in their original Farnsworth boxes. ITT bought Farnsworth's business for its tube division, only! ITT immediately killed all the Farnsworth TV and phonograph business at Pontiac street. The government vacuum tube and electronics contracts Farnsworth held were the money maker.

Richard Hull
Attachments
standard WWII scope attached to Mi Carbine.  Huge battery pack and vacuum tube 10kv supply needed for the tube in a back pack worn by the shooter.  The large item under the rifle is the large IR light source for illumination.
standard WWII scope attached to Mi Carbine. Huge battery pack and vacuum tube 10kv supply needed for the tube in a back pack worn by the shooter. The large item under the rifle is the large IR light source for illumination.
sniper.jpg (7.07 KiB) Viewed 4129 times
The first tube, 1P25, with odd ball hemispherical viewing screen at rear.
The first tube, 1P25, with odd ball hemispherical viewing screen at rear.
sniper tube 2.jpg (14.94 KiB) Viewed 4134 times
The later 6032 flat screened tube.  A great improvement
The later 6032 flat screened tube. A great improvement
sniper tube.jpg (17.51 KiB) Viewed 4134 times
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
User avatar
Paul_Schatzkin
Site Admin
Posts: 994
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2001 12:49 pm
Real name: aka The Perfesser
Contact:

Re: Farnsworth and Bell Labs

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

Richard has it right, so far as I know.

Farnsworth never worked for Bell Labs.

And yes, ITT acquired Farnsworth Television and Radio in 1949, and over the next few years liquidated all the home appliance manufacturing. There have been intimations that this was done as part of a backroom deal btw ITT's Harold Geneen and RCA's David Sarnoff, but... that's just a rumor I just breathed a little more life into.

Richard's use of the phrase 'unusual vacuum tube design' is interesting... I wonder what more could be gleaned going down that rabbit hole.

I mean, what is the fusor if not an 'unusual vacuum tube design'?
Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television: 2023 Edition – https://amz.run/6ag1
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 60 years in the past and we missed it."
User avatar
Richard Hull
Moderator
Posts: 14992
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 9:44 am
Real name: Richard Hull

Re: Farnsworth and Bell Labs

Post by Richard Hull »

Note: I have added the text below to "Richard's attic" in the Philo Farnsworth's history forum.

One of the great treasures of the ITT buy out within the tube division at Pontiac street was their phosphors lab! This is where their weird group of tubes were birthed. Phosphors were key to many military designs.

My visit in 1999 included lengthy interview time with Freddy Haak. He was a BS in chemistry specialized in phosphors. He was transferred to the Farnsworth team in late 1961 or early 62... He could not remember precisely.... He was transferred due to his knowledge of vacuum techniques and his phosphor knowledge. Freddy showed me many odd ball tubes that he was responsible for. Early computer phosphor scanned memory tubes, were his specialty. It is not known now, but only to me, that Freddy, Gene, and George, told me that in the many, over 20 bell jar type tubes created before the arrival of Bob Hirsch, that almost every one and their test versions contained Fred Haak applied phosphors so that electron paths and ion paths might be followed or observed either on electrodes or the glass of the bell jar tubes.

By bell jar tubes, we make the distinction that it was a mix of bell jars, (very few), and special tube lab blown glass fusor tubes designed from Farnsworth's crude drawings supplied to Jim Hiney who produced precise design drawings for the tube lab to make up. According to Gene and Fred, bell jars were often used with phosphors to design the internals and then moved to blown glass tubes by the tube lab. None ever did fusion. All of these early tubes 1959-1963 are lost. They went through many such iterations, unseen and lost forever. According to George Bain, when Farnsworth was effectively fired, he saw a near dumpster full of old Fusor tubes as his office was cleared out. The older all metal versions were returned to stores for parts scrap out.

The all metal fusors were the doing of the arrival of Hirsch coupled with far more serious efforts to do fusion at a professional level with professional materials in ever expanding budgets.

In short Freddy showed me some tubes even he could not remember what they did!!

The "Williams memory tube" was manufactured by ITT/Farnsworth for IBM in the early 50's. Freddy had two different versions of these.

https://ub.fnwi.uva.nl/computermuseum/williamstube.html


Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
User avatar
Nicolas Krause
Posts: 230
Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:36 pm
Real name: Nicolas Krause
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Farnsworth and Bell Labs

Post by Nicolas Krause »

Thank you both for the clarifications, I had assumed that the only way to get that kind of access would have been if they were colleagues. Very different times from now I suppose!
Post Reply

Return to “Fusion --- Past, Present, and Future”