Television Today and Tomorrow

New York: Dial Press, 1942/ First edition, presentation copy. Original beige cloth stamped in black. . Octavo. With over a hundred diagrams, drawings, and charts (six full-page). Slight rubbing. Some toning to endpapers, otherwise clean throughout. Inscribed by Lee de Forest to Dr. A.J. Lieberman (February 6, 1957). In the original dust jacket, printed in blue (some chipping to extremities and some toning). A very good, bright copy of this work by the inventor of the foundational technology for the field of electronics. Lee de Forest (1873 – 1961) was an inventor who pioneered broadcasting technology. His dissertation at Yale, "Reflections of Electric Waves of Very High Frequencies at the Ends of Parallel Wires," may have been the earliest American dissertation based on Hertzian waves — an experimental form of what became known as wireless. "De Forest's most important invention came in 1906, when he developed his "Audion," a three-element (triode) vacuum tube detector, on which later development of vacuum tube technology as well as long-distance telephone service were based…De Forest began experiments with broadcasting music — using wireless to transmit recorded and live musical performances, first for four months in 1907 in New York, and then on his honeymoon in Paris with several broadcasts from the Eiffel Tower, one of which was picked up 500 miles away. In January 1910 he broadcast opera from the roof of the Metropolitan Opera, but reports on poor sound quality did not help promotion of broadcasting…Audion's crucial role [was] transmitting continuous radio waves required for effective broadcasting of voice and music," (American National Biography).