In 1920, fourteen-year-old Philo Farnsworth was tilling his family's Idaho potato field. He'd been thinking of how to transmit motion pictures electronically. Observing the neat parallel lines of the potato field, it occurred to him that a frame to be transmitted could be broken down into parallel lines, transmitted, and reproduced at the remote end, line by line, in synchrony.
This isn't directly on topic, but I don't like it when people say that someone "perfected" some sort of design/tool/technology. They may have made it much much much better than it was before, but is the new version ever really perfect?
Most people understand this use of 'perfected' and do expect more improvements, probably at a much greater rate now that the idea finds widespread use.
Perfected might be better said "brought to the practicality tipping point?"
I remember I couldn't believe that someone actually invented that, as a little kid that made me think being a scientist was so cool.
...As a Boy Scout he learned Morse code, the spark that would ignite his invention....
-- Interesting note on the origin of invention.
