The tractor was waiting that afternoon, already hot from the sun. I climbed on, gripped the wheel, and started across the field. The job was simple: drive straight, turn, line up, cut another row. Over and over.Mary Elaine was standing in the field watching me like she had nothing better to do. She was my girlfriend, though she’d never admit it out loud. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Go faster!”
I scowled. “You want me to plow the field or wreck the tractor?”
“Both!” she shouted, laughing so hard she nearly toppled backward.
So I pressed the throttle, and the tractor rattled like it was about to shake itself apart. Dust flew up, and Mary Elaine waved her arms like she was at a parade. I pretended to be annoyed, but truth be told, I liked having her there. She made the work less dull.
The rows stretched behind me, neat and steady. I couldn’t see the whole field while I was driving—only the dirt right in front of the blade. But I knew what was happening. Each pass added one more line. Alone, each line meant nothing. Together, they became the field.
That’s when the idea hit me. Everyone said pictures were too heavy to send by radio. They thought you had to send the whole thing at once. But the field showed me different. A picture could be sent the way I was plowing—line by line.
I slowed the tractor, thinking hard. Mary Elaine groaned. “Don’t stop now! You were finally making it interesting.”
“Quiet,” I said, waving her off. “I’m working.”
“You’re sitting,” she said. “The tractor’s working.”
I ignored her. My mind was racing faster than the engine. Sound traveled through time, rising and falling. Pictures could travel through space, one strip at a time. Brightness along a line could be turned into an electrical signal, sent, and then used to draw light again at the other end. If the lines were drawn fast enough, the eye would hold them together. The image would look steady, even though it was never complete in a single instant.
Mary Elaine hopped off the fence and walked closer. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve seen something better,” I muttered.
She tilted her head. “What, another row of dirt?”
I pointed back at the field. “That’s not dirt. That’s a picture. Each row is a line. Put them together fast enough, and you’ve got television.”
She blinked. “Tele-what?”
“Television,” I said, savoring the word. “Pictures sent by radio. Moving pictures. Like the movies, but in your house.”
She laughed so hard she nearly fell over. “You’re telling me this tractor is a movie camera?”
“Not the tractor,” I snapped. “The idea. Don’t you get it? The field is the screen. Each row is a scan line. The whole picture is built one line at a time.”
She squinted at me. “You’re crazy.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But crazy is how things get invented.”
The sun was sinking low, and the first stars were beginning to show. Mary Elaine pointed at one. “That one’s mine.”
I shook my head. “Stars aren’t yours. They’re suns, just far away.”
She rolled her eyes. “You always have to explain everything.”
“Someone has to,” I said. “Otherwise you’ll go around thinking you own the universe.”
She grinned. “Maybe I do.”
I laughed, but my mind was still locked on the field. I thought about speed, about skipping lines and filling them in later, like plowing half the field first and finishing it on the second pass. The picture would still hold.
I stopped the tractor and looked back. To anyone else, it was just dirt. To me, it was a screen. Each row was a scan line. The whole field was the image.
Mary Elaine climbed up onto the tractor beside me. “So what are you going to do with this… television thing?”
“Draw it out,” I said. “Show someone who’ll understand.”
The next day at school, I did just that. I sketched a drawing on paper. Not farming—lines, timing, repetition. I showed how a camera tube could feed a signal to the TV picture tube. My teacher stood there, following the logic, and when I finished, he said quietly that I might really have something.
Yes, I did.
Philo Farnsworth went on to design and build the first fully electronic television system. He held more than 300 patents, fought corporate giants for recognition, and helped shape the medium that defined the 20th century. The boy who saw television in the field became the man who made it real.