A portrait of great depth - Capturing a moment
Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:53 pm
Attached is an image that grabbed me as no other in recent memory. It is a great and grand portrait to me. Something that reaches inside me.
This image is about a dream. Philo Farnsworth had a dream. As such, I post this here, within this special forum. Did Farnsworth as a young man go from the dream to the doing based on some revelation like that seen in the face of the intent young man seen below? That first excitement of an idea can be lost in the rush and trials of life about us. Sometimes it is not lost but acted on by a few driven individuals. Driven individuals can be crushed in their effort to take the idea forward for any number of reasons in the real world around them. Some tiny fraction will hang on with unbridled tenacity until the idea and its dream are made real. Farnsworth did it with television. It is amazing to me that he did this in a full electronic embodiment as rapidly as he did without significant backing. Here is where television failed to be fully on sale by 1935. No backing by a major entity coupled with the expense at that time of the receiver and a global economic depression kept a functional system from being developed.
From the moment I saw this and captured this image off of the "Great Big Story" video filmed at one of our recent HEAS events, I was touched deeply. The image is of two people, one old and one young staring at perhaps a fusion star.... On the left, our founder, Paul Schatzkin.... On the right one of a number of young men we often see at HEAS over the years. (his name escapes me)
The key thing for me is, of course, my interpretation of what I see in the portrait. It is always that which is in the eye of the beholder.
I see an old man who founded an entity to foster the search for fusion energy in the future, hopefully, within his lifetime. A man who is wise due to his years, full of past hopes and dreams both achieved and dashed. Possessor of a special wisdom. A calm wisdom. His face expresses this as he realizes perhaps this dream, this ball of contained and controlled plasma, may never produce energy within his life time. He has seen it before not only in reality presented now before him, but now, perhaps representing a fading dream.
Beside the old man, I also see a young man, keen, vibrant, amazed at what he sees in a reality before him. A floating ghostly apparition of contained charged matter. What must he think?....His mind racing with possibilities that only youthful excitement dare ponder. A moment frozen in time for him? A moment that will change him? A moment that will direct him? Possibly...... So many possibilities lay ahead.
Did Farnsworth have the moment that appears on this young man's face?
Please, click don the image to enlarge. Stare at it for a moment....What do you see?
P.S. here is the video for those who never saw it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wntLZCcYA&t=27s
Richard Hull
This image is about a dream. Philo Farnsworth had a dream. As such, I post this here, within this special forum. Did Farnsworth as a young man go from the dream to the doing based on some revelation like that seen in the face of the intent young man seen below? That first excitement of an idea can be lost in the rush and trials of life about us. Sometimes it is not lost but acted on by a few driven individuals. Driven individuals can be crushed in their effort to take the idea forward for any number of reasons in the real world around them. Some tiny fraction will hang on with unbridled tenacity until the idea and its dream are made real. Farnsworth did it with television. It is amazing to me that he did this in a full electronic embodiment as rapidly as he did without significant backing. Here is where television failed to be fully on sale by 1935. No backing by a major entity coupled with the expense at that time of the receiver and a global economic depression kept a functional system from being developed.
From the moment I saw this and captured this image off of the "Great Big Story" video filmed at one of our recent HEAS events, I was touched deeply. The image is of two people, one old and one young staring at perhaps a fusion star.... On the left, our founder, Paul Schatzkin.... On the right one of a number of young men we often see at HEAS over the years. (his name escapes me)
The key thing for me is, of course, my interpretation of what I see in the portrait. It is always that which is in the eye of the beholder.
I see an old man who founded an entity to foster the search for fusion energy in the future, hopefully, within his lifetime. A man who is wise due to his years, full of past hopes and dreams both achieved and dashed. Possessor of a special wisdom. A calm wisdom. His face expresses this as he realizes perhaps this dream, this ball of contained and controlled plasma, may never produce energy within his life time. He has seen it before not only in reality presented now before him, but now, perhaps representing a fading dream.
Beside the old man, I also see a young man, keen, vibrant, amazed at what he sees in a reality before him. A floating ghostly apparition of contained charged matter. What must he think?....His mind racing with possibilities that only youthful excitement dare ponder. A moment frozen in time for him? A moment that will change him? A moment that will direct him? Possibly...... So many possibilities lay ahead.
Did Farnsworth have the moment that appears on this young man's face?
Please, click don the image to enlarge. Stare at it for a moment....What do you see?
P.S. here is the video for those who never saw it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wntLZCcYA&t=27s
Richard Hull