born , Dec. 2, 1906, Budapest, Hung.
died Dec. 7, 1977, Westchester county, N.Y., U.S.
Hungarian-U.S. engineer.
He earned a doctorate from the University of Vienna before immigrating to the U.S. in 1933. From 1936 to 1972 he worked at the Columbia Broadcasting System Laboratories. In 1940 he demonstrated the first commercial colour-television system; based on a rotating three-colour disk, his system found wide application in closed-circuit television for industry, medical institutions, and schools because his camera was much smaller, lighter, and easier to maintain than those that eventually came to be used in commercial television. In 1948 he introduced the long-playing (LP) phonograph record, which revolutionized the recording industry. In 1950 he developed the scanning system that would allow the U.S. Lunar Orbiter spacecraft (launched in 1966) to relay photographs 238,000 mi (380,000 km) from the Moon to Earth.