Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow (22 August 1860 – 24 August 1940) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
technicianA technician is generally someone in a technological field who has a relatively practical understanding of the general theoretical principles of that field, e.g., as compared to an engineer in that field. They are generally much more versed in technique compared to the average layman, or even the...
and
inventorAn inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means. The word inventor comes form the latin verb invenire, invent-, to find...
.
Nipkow was born in
LauenburgLębork is a town on the Łeba and Okalica rivers in Middle Pomerania region, north-western Poland with some 37,000 inhabitants.Lębork is also the capital of Lębork County in Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, formerly in Słupsk Voivodeship ....
(Lębork) in
PomeraniaThe Province of Pomerania was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 until 1946. Since then it has been part of Germany and Poland....
. While at school in
NeustadtWejherowo is a town in Gdańsk Pomerania, northern Poland, with 47,000 inhabitants . It has been the capital of Wejherowo County in Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999; previously, it was a town in Gdańsk Voivodeship .-History:...
(Wejherowo),
West PrussiaWest Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
, Nipkow experimented in telephony and the transmission of moving pictures. After graduation, he went to Berlin in order to study science. He studied physiological optics with
Hermann von HelmholtzHermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science...
, and electro-physics with
Adolf Slaby Adolf Karl Heinrich Slaby was a German wireless pioneer and the first Professor of electro-technology at the Technical University of Berlin .-Education:Slaby was born in Berlin, the son of a bookbinder...
.
While still a student, he invented the
Nipkow diskA Nipkow disk , also known as scanning disk, is a mechanical, geometrically operating image scanning device, invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow...
.
Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow (22 August 1860 – 24 August 1940) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
technicianA technician is generally someone in a technological field who has a relatively practical understanding of the general theoretical principles of that field, e.g., as compared to an engineer in that field. They are generally much more versed in technique compared to the average layman, or even the...
and
inventorAn inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means. The word inventor comes form the latin verb invenire, invent-, to find...
.
Beginnings
Nipkow was born in
LauenburgLębork is a town on the Łeba and Okalica rivers in Middle Pomerania region, north-western Poland with some 37,000 inhabitants.Lębork is also the capital of Lębork County in Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, formerly in Słupsk Voivodeship ....
(Lębork) in
PomeraniaThe Province of Pomerania was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 until 1946. Since then it has been part of Germany and Poland....
. While at school in
NeustadtWejherowo is a town in Gdańsk Pomerania, northern Poland, with 47,000 inhabitants . It has been the capital of Wejherowo County in Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999; previously, it was a town in Gdańsk Voivodeship .-History:...
(Wejherowo),
West PrussiaWest Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
, Nipkow experimented in telephony and the transmission of moving pictures. After graduation, he went to Berlin in order to study science. He studied physiological optics with
Hermann von HelmholtzHermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science...
, and electro-physics with
Adolf Slaby Adolf Karl Heinrich Slaby was a German wireless pioneer and the first Professor of electro-technology at the Technical University of Berlin .-Education:Slaby was born in Berlin, the son of a bookbinder...
.
Nipkow disk
While still a student, he invented the
Nipkow diskA Nipkow disk , also known as scanning disk, is a mechanical, geometrically operating image scanning device, invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow...
. Accounts of its invention state that he conceived the idea of using a spiral-perforated disk to divide a picture into a mosaic of points and lines while sitting alone at home with an oil lamp on
Christmas EveChristmas Eve, December 24, is the night before Christmas Day, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.-Western Churches:Many Roman Catholics and Anglicans traditionally celebrate a midnight Mass which begins sometime before midnight on Christmas Day; this ceremony, which is held in churches...
, 1883. It should be noted here that
Alexander BainAlexander Bain was a Scottish instrument inventor, technician, and clockmaker. He invented the electric clock. Bain installed the railway telegraph lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow.-Early life:...
had transmitted images telegraphically in the 1840s but the Nipkow disk improved the encoding process.
He applied to the imperial patent office in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
for a patent covering an
electric telescope for the
electric reproduction of illuminating objects, in the category "electric apparatuses". This was granted on 15 January 1885, retroactive to 6 January 1884. It is not known whether Nipkow ever attempted a practical realization of this disk but one may assume that he himself never constructed one. The patent lapsed after 15 years owing to lack of interest. Nipkow took up a position as a designer at an institute in Berlin-Buchloh and did not continue work on the broadcasting of pictures.
First TV systems
The first telecasts used an optical-mechanical picture scanning method, the method that Nipkow had helped create with his disk; he could claim some credit for the invention. Nipkow recounted his first sight of television at a Berlin radio show in 1928: "the televisions stood in dark cells. Hundreds stood and waited patiently for the moment at which they would see television for the first time. I waited among them, growing ever more nervous. Now for the first time I would see what I had devised 45 years ago. Finally I reached the front row; a dark cloth was pushed to the side, and I saw before me a flickering image, not easy to discern." The system demonstrated was from
John Logie BairdJohn Logie Baird was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first working television system, also the world's first fully electronic colour television broadcast...
's Baird Television Company. Baird was the first inventor to use Nipkow's disc successfully, creating the first television pictures in his laboratory in October 1925.
From 1937, when the infant
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
television service chose it above Baird's mechanical system, total electronic picture scanning, based on the work of
Manfred von ArdenneManfred von Ardenne was a German research and applied physicist and inventor. He took out approximately 600 patents in fields including electron microscopy, medical technology, nuclear technology, plasma physics, and radio and television technology...
and the
iconoscopeThe Iconoscope was the name given to an early television camera tube in which a beam of high-velocity electrons scans a photoemissive mosaic...
invented by
Vladimir ZworykinVladimir Kozmich Zworykin was a Russian-American inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing cathode ray tubes...
, became increasingly prevalent and Nipkow's invention was no longer essential to further development of television.
Transmitter Paul Nipkow
Germany's first public television channel, started in Berlin in 1935, was named
Fernsehsender Paul NipkowThe Fernsehsender "Paul Nipkow" Berlin was a television station in Germany. It was on the air from March 22 1935 until it was shut down in 1944. Its headquarters were in Berlin, Germany. It was named after Paul Nipkow, the inventor of the Nipkow disk...
after Paul Nipkow - the "spiritual father" of the core element of first generation television technology. He became honorary president of the "television council" of the "Imperial Broadcasting Chamber". Nipkow died in Berlin.
External links