Short Stories

Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies
—R. A. Lafferty


  •   · Excerpt    
      "Even today, the “invention” of television is usually ascribed to Paul Nipkow of Germany, and the year is given as 1884. Nipkow used the principle of the variation in the electrical conductivity of selenium when exposed to light, and he used scanning discs as mechanical effectors. What else was there for him to use before the development of the phototube and the current-amplifying electron tube? The resolution of Nipkow's television was very poor due to the “slow light” characteristics of selenium response and the lack of amplification. There were, however, several men in the United States who transmitted a sort of television before Nipkow did so in Germany."  —R. A. Lafferty
         · 1979 Locus 15th, Best Short Fiction



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