24 Master Minds of Modern Science 



issued an invitation to the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain to visit his attic laboratory and witness a demon- 

 stration of the apparatus, which he now named ' the 

 televisor/ 



Fifty members of the Institution accepted the invita- 

 tion, and as the attic could only accommodate six persons 

 at a time, they witnessed the exhibition in relays. The 

 scientists looked on with intense interest as images of 

 living faces were transmitted from one room to the other. 

 The prophecy of fifty years was fulfilled, and ' seeing 

 at a distance ' was an accomplished fact. 



Dr Russell, F.R.S., the Principal of Faraday House, 

 who witnessed this demonstration, wrote in Nature : 



We saw the transmission by television of living human faces, 

 the proper gradation of light and shade, and all the move- 

 ments of the head, of the lips and mouth, and of a cigarette and 

 its smoke were faithfully portrayed on a screen in a theatre, 

 the transmitter being in a room at the top of the building. 

 Naturally the results are far from perfect. The image cannot 

 be compared with that produced by a good cinematograph film. 

 The likeness, however, was unmistakable, and all the motions 

 are reproduced with absolute fidelity. This is the first time we 

 have seen real television, and, so far as we know, Mr Baird is 

 the first to have accomplished this feat. 



It could no longer be doubted that television might 

 become a commercial success ; money was forthcoming, 

 and Baird was able to move from the attic in which his 

 experiments had been carried out to larger and more 

 adequately equipped premises near by. Here during 1926 

 numerous demonstrations were successfully conducted, 

 and the inventor continued his efforts to perfect his 

 apparatus. 



Two years later one of the authors took part in an 

 experiment in which his face was transmitted to a receiv- 

 ing set two floors away, before which sat a friend. The 

 rapid progress made by the inventor during those two 



