Portrait of Vladimir Zworykin (1889-1982), Russian physicist and inventor of the electronic scanning television. After gaining an engineering degree, Zworykin spent the First World War as a radio officer in the Russian Army. He emigrated to the USA in 1919 and joined the Westinghouse Corporation. In 1923, he showed how to reproduce an image by dividing it into many charge- proportional photoelectric cells. When scanned by an electron beam, the cells discharged in turn producing a signal. This was then reconstructed in a cathode ray tube. By 1929, this had been developed into the first electrical television, supplanting Baird's mechanical system.