Who Were the Inventors of the Color Television Tube?

Thomas Young and Hermann Helmholtz helped to develop the technology that led to the color television tube, as did many others along the way. The color television tube is designed to represent the full color spectrum for use in color television viewing.  There was no need for such a tube until the color television was invented. 

In 1923, Russian Vladimir Zworykin invented the iconoscope which was a tube used in early television cameras.  He filed a patent in 1925 for an electronic color television system.  He then invented the cathode ray tube in 1929 which he called a kinescope tube.  He went to work for RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, and with the help of his work, color television broadcasting began on December 17, 1953.

Understanding How Eyes See Color

The color television tube was designed to project the RGB (red, green, blue) color model, which is based on the work of Thomas Young, Hermann Helmholtz and James Clark Maxwell. These three men were the main contributors to the development of a color theory saying that the photoreceptors in our eyes combine the basic colors of red, green and blue to provide the full spectrum of color which we see.

• Young and Helmholtz developed the trichromatic color vision theory during the first half of the 19th century.  They studied how the photoreceptor cells in the eyes of humans and some other animals worked to see color.  
• Young suggested that there were three kinds of these photoreceptors in our eyes. These are now known as cone cells. Each type of cell is sensitive to a certain range of visible light. 
• Young and Helmholtz further classified these cone cells in 1850.  The ones that preferred the shorter wave lengths were called blue, the ones who preferred the middle range were called green, and the long range ones were called red.  The brain takes signals from all three and interprets them into color. 

The three colors of red, green, and blue combine to produce a full spectrum of color. This RGB color model is the reason that televisions, digital cameras, video cameras, scanners, mobile phones, and computers can display colors.

The three colored beams of light (red, green, or blue) are superimposed by reflecting off a white screen or emitting from a black screen. How much of each color is used makes the different colors. 

Maxwell and the Color Triangle

Another development that led to color television was the color triangle by James Clark Maxwell around 1860 which elaborated on Young and Helmholtz’s theory. 

• Previously color triangles merged the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue.  However, Maxwell’s theory was an additive color theory that is not the same as when a rainbow is formed. 
• His three primary colors were vermilion (reddish orange), emerald (green), and ultramarine (blue).

Invention of Color Television

The color television tube wouldn't be as important a discovery without the discovery of color television, which needed the color tube to produce vivid color:

• After Vladimir Zworykin invented the color television tube for RCA, it was up to RCA to figure out how to use the tube to develop the concept of color television and how to introduce color television into broadcast.

• One problem that RCA helped overcome was how the television signal was broadcast and received.  The color signal needed to be compatible with monochrome, or black and white, television systems.  
• RCA began selling color televisions in 1954 but they were expensive for most families.  NBC, which was owned by RCA, was the only channel that had regular programs in color during the 1950s.  One thing that helped to increase sales of color TVs was the broadcast of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, which started in September of 1961. 

Today, color televisions are a staple of almost every home, all things to the early work on the color television tube and to the work of other scientists and experts who helped the invention to evolve.