Kalman Tihanyi

* Uzbek, April 28, 1897 – † Budapest, February 26, 1947 / physicist, inventor ; ; He completed his professional studies in Bratislava at the electrotechnical secondary school and in Budapest. He submitted his first two patent applications in 1913 and 1914, and was granted a patent for both in 1915. He graduated from high school in Vác in 1915, then volunteered for the army. In January 1917, as a reserve officer candidate, he was sent to the Eastern Front with the 4th Army Artillery Regiment, later receiving the Bronze Medal of Valor for “his brave conduct in the battles around Ojtoz”, and on November 1, 1917, he was promoted to lieutenant. After that, he served as a radio engineer in the Royal Navy’s Pula naval port. The so-called inventor of a cathode ray tube image separator, similar in principle to an iconoscope (English patent: 1928). He came up with the solution for television in 1924. A shorter patent description, probably filed in the spring of 1925, and a published article about the invention were followed by his patent application filed on March 20, 1926, now also for color television. ; But he further improved his invention. He described his final ideas in two patent applications in 1928, and in 1929 (with priority in 1928) he extended the protection to the most important countries, including French, English, and American patent applications. From 1928 he discussed the implementation of the invention in Berlin. In 1929 he built the first experimental copy of his picture tube in his own laboratory in Berlin. At the same time, he developed and patented a special version of his television camera, also sensitive to infrared rays, for controlling unmanned aircraft, tanks, cannons, etc. He contracted with the British Air Ministry to build the prototype, and so he moved to London – he later adapted the device for the Italian Navy. In 1930, after the television patents were published in England and France, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) approached him in London with the intention of purchasing it, and in 1931 he began developing the new image resolution. The camera was ready for mass production in 1934. In September 1934, after lengthy negotiations and American patent court proceedings, a licensing agreement was concluded. His further television-related inventions, created between 1934 and 1937, were purchased and developed by Loewe, RCA, and Fernseh AG. Between 1933 and 1936, he developed his plasma-type completely flat television, which he patented in 1939, according to a note he made. According to the description, it could be framed and hung on a wall (!), and he planned to start its production in Hungary after the war. ; In these last peaceful years before the war, he completed his new invention, which, according to experts, was comparable in importance to his television, an acoustic beam projector, along with the plans. After his return home in 1940, he led the relevant experiments and the development of the prototype until the German occupation. After the jump attempt on October 15, 1944, he was forced into illegality, also because of his connection with Bajcsy Zsilinszky and his circle. After the war, he began to develop his inventions, which had now become timely. He was strongly interested in the possibilities of ; ultrasound technology and developed and left behind numerous inventions for its application. ; He manufactured a new type of ball bearing in his factory, the prototype of his gold centrifuge was also built here, and he began organizing a picture tube factory. After his sudden death in 1947, the significance of his work was increasingly forgotten, but in the early 1970s, the clarification of the history of television and its role in it began. He did important work in the realization of television, and his inventions brought about a change of era in the history of image transmission. The charge accumulation or charge storage introduced by him was a fundamental scientific and technical advance, which solved the problem of increasing the light sensitivity of image recording tubes. Other important innovations of the invention, among others, enabled a resolution of several hundred lines and perfect synchronization between the image recorder and image transmitter (camera and picture tube), without moving parts, using purely electronics. His early death was caused by a heart attack.