[7] In 1918, the family moved to a relative's 240-acre (1.0 km2) ranch near Rigby, Idaho,[12] where his father supplemented his farming income by hauling freight with his horse-drawn wagon.

He found a burned-out electric motor among some items discarded by the previous tenants and rewound the armature; he converted his mother's hand-powered washing machine into an electric-powered one.

[13] He developed an early interest in electronics after his first telephone conversation with a distant relative, and he discovered a large cache of technology magazines in the attic of their new home.

He returned to Provo and enrolled at Brigham Young University, but he was not allowed by the faculty to attend their advanced science classes based upon policy considerations.

[20] He developed a close friendship with Pem's brother Cliff Gardner, who shared his interest in electronics, and the two moved to Salt Lake City to start a radio repair business.

[21][22] They agreed to fund his early television research with an initial $6,000 in backing,[23] and set up a laboratory in Los Angeles for Farnsworth to carry out his experiments.

[25] A few months after arriving in California, Farnsworth was prepared to show his models and drawings to a patent attorney who was nationally recognized as an authority on electrophysics.

[26] Most television systems in use at the time used image scanning devices ("rasterizers") employing rotating "Nipkow disks" comprising a spinning disk with holes arranged in spiral patterns such that they swept across an image in a succession of short arcs while focusing the light they captured on photosensitive elements, thus producing a varying electrical signal corresponding to the variations in light intensity.

Before leaving his old employer, Zworykin visited Farnsworth's laboratory, and was sufficiently impressed with the performance of the Image Dissector that he reportedly had his team at Westinghouse make several copies of the device for experimentation.

[32] Zworykin later abandoned research on the Image Dissector, which at the time required extremely bright illumination of its subjects, and turned his attention to what became the Iconoscope.

[33] In a 1970s series of videotaped interviews, Zworykin recalled that, "Farnsworth was closer to this thing you're using now [i.e., a video camera] than anybody, because he used the cathode-ray tube for transmission.

RCA lost a subsequent appeal, but litigation over a variety of issues continued for several years before Sarnoff finally agreed to pay Farnsworth royalties.

[41] Farnsworth set up shop at 127 East Mermaid Lane in Philadelphia, and in 1934 held the first public exhibition of his device at the Franklin Institute in that city.

[7] In September 1939, after a more than decade-long legal battle, RCA finally conceded to a multi-year licensing agreement concerning Farnsworth's 1927 patent for television totaling $1 million.

From there, he introduced a number of breakthrough concepts, including a defense early warning signal, submarine detection devices, radar calibration equipment and an infrared telescope.

"Philo was a very deep person—tough to engage in conversation, because he was always thinking about what he could do next", said Art Resler, an ITT photographer who documented Farnsworth's work in pictures.

[8] One of Farnsworth's most significant contributions at ITT was the PPI Projector, an enhancement on the iconic "circular sweep" radar display, which allowed safe air traffic control from the ground.

It was only due to the urging of president Harold Geneen that the 1966 budget was accepted, extending ITT's fusion research for an additional year.

[45] In 1967, Farnsworth and his family moved back to Utah to continue his fusion research at Brigham Young University, which presented him with an honorary doctorate.

They promptly secured a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and more possibilities were within reach—but financing stalled for the $24,000 a month required for salaries and equipment rental.

By Christmas 1970, PTFA had failed to secure the necessary financing, and the Farnsworths had sold all their own ITT stock and cashed in Philo's life insurance policy to maintain organizational stability.

The banks called in all outstanding loans, repossession notices were placed on anything not previously sold, and the Internal Revenue Service put a lock on the laboratory door until delinquent taxes were paid.

[13] In the course of a patent interference suit brought by the Radio Corporation of America in 1934 and decided in February 1935, his high school chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, produced a sketch he had made of a blackboard drawing Farnsworth had shown him in spring 1922.

Unlike most controlled fusion systems, which slowly heat a magnetically confined plasma, the fusor injects high-temperature ions directly into a reaction chamber, thereby avoiding a considerable amount of complexity.

His inventions contributed to the development of radar, infra-red night vision devices, the electron microscope, the baby incubator, the gastroscope, and the astronomical telescope.

[21] Host Garry Moore then spent a few minutes discussing with Farnsworth his research on such projects as an early analog high-definition television system, flat-screen receivers, and fusion power.

[91] The facility was located at 3702 E. Pontiac St.[91] Also that year, additional Farnsworth factory artifacts were added to the Fort Wayne History Center's collection, including a radio-phonograph and three table-top radios from the 1940s, as well as advertising and product materials from the 1930s to the 1950s.

[93][94] In addition to Fort Wayne, Farnsworth operated a factory in Marion, Indiana, that made shortwave radios used by American combat soldiers in World War II.