I am one of the principal biographer/promoters of the legend of Philo T. Farnsworth. I have known his family since 1975, and I dare say my meager efforts on his behalf are one reason the name has any profile these days.

I keep a Google Alert on the name Philo T. Farnsworth, and this afternoon I discovered your July 11 article in the Chestnut Hill Local ("Recalling Chestnut Hill's genius inventor of the TV set"). I commend the job you have done distilling the Farnsworth story both concisely and accurately.

Moreover, I am intrigued to read that Mr. Lear spoke with Farnsworth himself in 1969 – as you say, just a couple of years before he shed the mortal coil that delivered video to our planet back in 1927. I never had that privilege myself, though I did spend quite a bit of time with his eldest son Philo T. Farnsworth III (1929-1987), who was an inventor in his own right. Though not as accomplished in conventional terms as his father, "P3" was a noble soul nonetheless. My own work was greatly informed by the time I spent with him.

By the way, starting in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s, in his later years, Farnsworth developed a novel approach to controlled nuclear fusion, the "star in a jar" that eludes modern science to this day.

Those of us who are familiar with that work – and believe that it still holds unrecognized promise – wonder why the work was never completed. From my experience with the family, I dare say the sentiment you cited (about his bitterness) was one factor: he just didn't trust that a world so configured was ready for the technology he could unleash – and took the secret to his grave.

I've developed what case I can for his fusion work at waterstarproject.com, and there is a global cadre of amateur experimenters who have built similar devices who share their experience at fusor.net. ("Fusor" is the name he gave to his fusion device.)

Paul Schatzkin

Nashville, TN

(Author of “The Boy Who Invented Television,” a biography of Philo T. Farnsworth)