Engineers

Vladimir Zworykin

Citation Formats

General Reference

Technology and Engineering Atlas. "Vladimir Zworykin." Accessed August 29, 2026. https://dev-technology.interactiveatlas.org/engineers/vladimir-zworykin.

APA Style

Technology and Engineering Atlas. (n.d.). Vladimir Zworykin. Retrieved August 29, 2026, from https://dev-technology.interactiveatlas.org/engineers/vladimir-zworykin

BibTeX

@misc{technologyandengineeringatlas-vladimir-zworykin,
  author = {Technology and Engineering Atlas},
  title = {Vladimir Zworykin},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-technology.interactiveatlas.org/engineers/vladimir-zworykin},
  note = {Accessed August 29, 2026}
}

Vladimir Zworykin was a Russian-American engineer at RCA who filed a patent application for an electronic camera tube concept, the iconoscope, in 1923, and led RCA's development of a working electronic television system in the early 1930s. RCA's attempt to claim priority over Philo Farnsworth on the strength of the unreduced 1923 filing failed in a 1934 patent office ruling.

Facts

Birth Year

1888 1

Death Year

1982 1

Nationality

Russian-American 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Held Differently

Television

Why this is disputed. RCA backed Zworykin's 1923 iconoscope patent filing as prior to Farnsworth's, but a 1934 United States patent office ruling, upheld on appeal in 1936, found the 1923 filing had never been reduced to practice and awarded priority to Farnsworth.

Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

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