Image Transmission and Selenium: Adriano de Paiva and Initial Steps in the XIX Century

Definition

Sound transmission, in the form of the telephone, was invented by Alexander Graham Bell et al. in the seventies of the XIX century. Inspired by this development, Adriano de Paiva published in 1878 the idea of the transmission of images at a distance using electricity and selenium. His proposal was based upon earlier work by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who identified the selenium element in 1817, and of Willoughby Smith, who in 1873 identified a peculiar property of this material—its conductivity dependence upon incident light. The 1878 paper of Adriano de Paiva is the first publication proposing to benefit from the properties of selenium in order to achieve electrical image transmission at a distance and, in the words of the author, enable ubiquity—the transmission of sound and image anywhere in real time. This encyclopedia entry delves into the early steps of electrical image transmission, concisely presenting the protagonists and controversies of scientific priority, and mentioning the impact of those pioneering contributions, still mentioned today, approximately one and a half centuries later.

1. Introduction: The Man, the Facts

Events that occurred in the second half of the XIX century concerning the initial steps of image transmission at a distance are not a minor curiosity, since the evolution of the subject led to developments, including television, that strongly contributed to the evolution of the world in the XX century. This encyclopedia entry focus on the role of a Portuguese academic, Adriano de Paiva, as a pioneer of the idea of benefiting from the light-sensitive properties of selenium in the context of image transmission at a distance.

Adriano de Paiva de Faria Leite Brandão, known in scientific circles as Adriano de Paiva, was born in Braga in 1847 and passed away in Porto in1907. He was admitted into the Universidade de Coimbra and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1866 and a doctor of philosophy degree in 1868. From 1876, he was a full professor (lente proprietário) of Physics at the Academia Polytechnica do Porto and in 1881 he became a corresponding member of the Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa (ARCL). In 1877, he was created count of Campo Bello by the King of Portugal D. Luís I, and became ‘Par do Reino’. He was a member of the Société Internationale des Electriciens, and a founding member of the Sociedade d’Instrucção do Porto.

After about a century and a half since the beginning of his activities at the Porto Polytechnic Academy, Adriano de Paiva is often cited as a pioneer of the idea of transmitting images remotely using selenium, which he presented in an 1878 article in the journal O Instituto [1], published in Coimbra. His subsequent publications reflect his efforts to have his scientific priority recognized, namely an 1880 article in the same journal [2], and a brochure also published in 1880 and circulated internationally [3].

The following is a reproduction from [1] of some paragraphs that describe the author’s proposal, in the translation into English published as a part of [3]: “ …… the mechanism of the telescope which we predicted […… :] A camera obscura, placed on the site of the observations, would represent in a way the ocular camera. Upon a plate at the bottom of this camera the images of exterior objects would be depicted, with their respective colors and particular accidents of illumination, affecting thus diversely the different portions of the plate. All that is wanting therefore, here, is the discovery of the method of operating the transformation, by no means impossible, of this energy absorbed by the plate, into electric currents, which should subsequently reproduce the images. ……” ([3], pp. 45–46). And, a few paragraphs ahead, “ …… the experiments we intended to make, and which we shall still attempt to realize, consisted in the employment of selenium as the sensitive plate of the camera of the telectroscope. This body possesses the remarkable property, recently discovered, of, —when interposed in an electric circuit which passes through a galvanometer, —making the needle of the latter deviate sensibly whenever a luminous ray incides on the selenium, and this deviation varies with the color of the light. ……”. The paper of de Paiva does not include figures depicting the envisioned system, nor does the author discuss possible details of the receptor. It is, however, clear that the camera should be composed of a number of selenium elements, each one connected to an electric cable for the transmission of the respective signal. The paper finishes with the vision of ubiquity finally achieved, via the worldwide spread of such electric cables enabling image transmission between any two points.

The initial publication, in 1878, in Portuguese language and in a journal without wide circulation, limited the impact and circulation of his innovative idea. And when he sought to redress the situation by publishing the 1880 brochure [3], others had in the meantime published related ideas. Thus, the impact of de Paiva’s idea was weakened. Even in Portugal, Francisco da Fonseca Benevides, despite having signed in 1881 the scientific opinion regarding the admission of Adriano de Paiva as corresponding member of the Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa (now Academia das Ciências de Lisboa), mentions de Paiva in [4] without acknowledging his scientific priority, and in other works related to selenium he does not mention de Paiva ([5,6]). A. Sousa Pinto redressed this situation in 1907, recognizing Paiva’s scientific priority in an article on the evolution of the use of selenium in image transmission [7]. Internationally, de Paiva was mentioned by relevant figures such as Paul Nipkow in 1885 [8], and was not ignored in the USA, see, for example, the 1916 article by F. C. Brown in the Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Sciences [9]. In the mid-XX century, however, he was sometimes forgotten, notably in works on the history of technology—C. Singer’s (and T. Williams’) monumental A History of Technology in 7 vols. plus consolidated indexes [10], does not mention Adriano de Paiva.

At the end of the XX century, André Lange devoted attention to Adriano de Paiva, in his very well-researched site ‘Histoire de la television’ [11], making facsimiles of the main documents easily available. Lange’s references to de Paiva benefited, as he explicitly acknowledges, from the inputs of Manuel Vaz Guedes, who at the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (FEUP, an institution descendant of the Academia Polytechnica do Porto) had studied Adriano de Paiva’s contribution in detail [12,13,14] (a site kept by FEUP collects M. Vaz Guedes’ works on history of electrical engineering, focused on Portugal, https://paginas.fe.up.pt/histel/ (accessed on 10 November 2024)). Today, it is common for de Paiva to be associated with the initial steps of long-distance image transmission, and now it is less common for this reference to be omitted, as in Ivy Roberts [15], though her book [16] includes de Paiva’ 1880 brochure in an appendix listing sources.

In addition to the scientific and technical journals, newspapers were understandably interested by the novelty of image transmission. The first mention of the subject may be a visionary article in The Sun, a New York city newspaper, signed using the pseudonym ‘Electrician’, and lacking scientific underpining [17]. After proposals for using selenium were already public, the topic became a matter of interest for the media, and, for example, the Porto newspaper O Commercio do Porto included in 1879 two related articles [18,19].

Clearly, Adriano de Paiva’s proposal was a pioneering step in the direction of television. His 1878 article is occasionally associated with the ’invention of television’, namely in internet blogs and other media. This description is, however, deemed inadequate by Manuel Vaz Guedes, who published an evaluative judgment resulting from a careful analysis of relevant information [12,13], taking into account the many hurdles that had to be overtaken in subsequent decades before a moving image could finally be transmitted at a distance.

The development, in recent decades, of academic interest in media implies that the name of Adriano de Paiva also circulates in media studies, as exemplified by Doron Galili in 2020 [20]. Another area of academic reflection that has developed in recent decades is gender studies, and references to Adriano de Paiva are also found there, notably by Sarah Arnold in 2021 [21].

Outside of academic environments, professor Adriano de Paiva, the first count of Campo Bello, Figure 1, contributed to the social life of his time, notably in several associations, and to the political life of Portugal given his status as ‘Par do Reino’.

2. The Influence of the Siemens Brothers

The German-language translation of the second Swedish edition of Jöns Jacob Berzelius’ Lärbok i kemien, published in Vienna by Grund in 1824, includes data and details on selenium, the new element discovered in 1818 by Berzelius [22]. A subsequent major step was the 1839 communication by Edmond Becquerel to the Academie des Sciences on the effects of chemical radiation from sunlight by means of electric currents [23], which preceded by a few decades the work of Adams and Day on the action of light on selenium presented to the Royal Society in 1877 [24].

C. William Siemens may have had a seminal effect on the development of the idea of seeing by electricity, with his presentation of an electrical ‘artificial eye’ to the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1876 [25], which relied upon work of his brother Werner, published in the previous year [26] (reprinted in [27]). Concerning access to sources, the unusually long designation of the Royal Institution proceedings—Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, with Abstracts of the Discourses Delivered at the Evening Meetings—implies that www searches looking for ‘Journal of the……’ or ‘Proceedings of the……’ are mostly unsuccessful. It should, however, be noted that the Royal Institution proceedings were reprinted in 1970 by Applied Science publishers (Elsevier Pub. Co.) in a 10 volume set plus index, edited by Bragg and Porter [28] under the name ‘Physical sciences. The Royal Institution library of science’, where the C. W. Siemens paper is found in vol. 2, pp. 466–477. As another detail, the Royal Institution was confused with the Royal Society by Vaz Guedes [13], an error propagated subsequently to Lange (https://www.histv.net/siemens-february-1876 (accessed on 10 November 2024)). In 2017, Schubin, in the Proceedings of the IEEE [29], acknowledges Lange’s perception of Siemens’ influence, but does not mention Vaz Guedes in that recognition—perhaps a consequence of the use by Vaz Guedes of a language peripherical in the world of science and technology.

Manuel Vaz Guedes is the first historian of the early stages of image transmission that attributed to the 1876 C. William Siemens communication to the Royal Institution of Great Britain [25] a key role in the subsequent proposals for the electrical transmission of images. These appear in the transition from the seventies to the eighties of the XIX century: in 1878 in Portugal, by Adriano de Paiva [1], in 1879 in Italy, by Carlo Mario Perosino—whose paper in the Atti della Reale Accademia delle scienze di Torino [30] was briefly presented in [31,32]—in France in 1880 by Constantin Senlecq [33], and in the USA by George R. Carey in 1880 [34]. The last article gives a detailed description of the apparatus proposed, together with some informative figures (Figure 2).

A common feature is the intended use of a number of selenium elements (a ‘mosaic’), each one connected via an electric cable to the receptor. The number of cables required, in order to achieve image resolution, would be extremely great. According to an article published in 1881 by the Scientific American, …… (sic) ”Some experimenters have used many wires, bound together cable-wise, others one wire only. The result has been, on the one hand, confusion of conductors beyond a certain distance, with the absolute impossibility of obtaining perfect insulation; and, on the other hand, an utter want of synchronism. The unequal and slow sensitiveness of the selenium likewise obstructed the proper working of the apparatus. Now, without a relative simplicity in the arrangement of the conducting wires intended to convey to a distance the electric current with its variations of intensity, without a perfect and rapid synchronism acting concurrently with the luminous impressions, so as to insure the simultaneous action of transmitter and receiver, without, in fine, an increased sensitiveness in the selenium, the idea of the telectroscope could not be realized. M. Senlecq has fortunately surmounted most of these main obstacles, and we give today a description of the latest apparatus he has contrived”. Senlecq’s apparatus is described in detail in his 1881 brochure [35], supported by a number of informative figures, e.g., Figure 3.

The impact of the pioneers of 1878–1880 is that it their work led the way to further research. In 1884, Paul Nipkow introduced an image scanning system consisting of a rotating disk with a series of holes arranged in a spiral. After the work of many individuals, more than four decades later, a scanning ‘Nipkow disc’ would enable the first convincing mechanical television demonstration by John Logie Baird in 1926 [37,38].

Figure 4 presents a concise timeline.

3. Implementation

In his 1879 letter to Gaston Tissandier for publication in the French journal La Nature, de Paiva states that, for undisclosed reasons, he did not attempt to perform experiments or develop a functional implementation [2]. But in his 1878 article, he indicated that the development of a functional solution would be up to a practitioner, suggesting an attitude different from that of contemporary inventors in other countries, who, with greater or lesser success, sought to combine theoretical reflections and laboratory and experimental developments. In [39], da Silva and Teves suggest that, perhaps because of a lack of technical infrastructure, or ill-suited environment, de Paiva did not proceed with the experimental demonstration of his idea. As early as 1882, already de Sousa noted that difficulty, in an article (in two parts) published in the journal Revista Scientífica published in Porto (curiously not included in the catalog of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) [40,41].

In an interview given by a descendant of Adriano de Paiva to a weekly newspaper, it is stated that he made unsuccessful efforts to raise funds that would allow him to carry out experimental development [42]; this is also indicated by Manuel Varella [43], without, however, indicating evidence in support of the statement. In contrast, Manuel Vaz Guedes suggests that as a director of the Physics laboratory at the Academia Polytechnica do Porto, de Paiva would have had the possibility of carrying out experimental work to develop his idea [12]. In fact, the acquisition by the Academia Polytechnica do Porto of an expensive collection of Reuleaux cinematic models, for the Kinematics Cabinet ([44] p. 7; [45] p. 10, [46]), shows that the Academia Polytechnica do Porto could put into practice proposals for the acquisition of laboratory material, which would also apply to Adriano de Paiva, owner of the Physics chair.

4. Initial Years of the Notion of Image Transmission at a Distance, The Scientific Priority: 1878–1880

A matter of interest is the scientific priority regarding the proposal of benefiting from the photosensitive property of selenium in the electrical transmission of images at a distance. Recalling the initial moments of that notion, it should be mentioned that in those times the question of scientific priority was already a concern, and this topic was not an exception. Some of the participants in the controversy regarding the priority made mentions of having thoughts about a solution to the problem first.

Adriano de Paiva made a clear effort to protect the priority of the idea of associating the properties of selenium with the transmission of images at a distance. In this sense, he took the initiative of publishing, in a brochure printed in 1880, translations into French and English of his 1878 article, to which he added the 1880 article reporting on the correspondence with Tissandier mentioned above and articles by contemporaries who meanwhile published related considerations, namely the French Constantin Senlecq and the Italian Carlo Mario Perosino, Figure 5.

Further to the ARCL [47], he took care of aiming at a wide international readership by sending the brochure to stakeholders and journals, for example, La Lumiére Électrique [48], The Academy (United Kingdom) [49], and especially the Franklin Institute in the USA, organizer of the International Electrical Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1884, in whose catalog the aforementioned brochure is listed ([50] p. xxxvi). Emphasizing the rarity of de Paiva’s 1880 brochure, André Lange writes that it is surprising that the Franklin Institute apparently got rid of it, since after many decades it reappeared offered for sale in the 2018 catalog of an antiquarian bookseller at a very high price [51]. However, it should be pointed out that the 1884 Philadelphia exhibition organized by the Franklin Institute, mentioned above, included not one but four of these brochures [50] p. xxxvi.

In 1880, Antoine Breguet published a paper in La Revue Scientifique de la France et de l’Étranger, where he cites de Paiva stating that “…… Ces recherches donnèrent lieu pourtant à d’ingénieuses idées, qui méritent d’être mentionnées. M. Adriano de Paiva fut le premier peut-être à songer à une application de cette nature……” [52], or translating from the French, “…… These researches nevertheless gave rise to ingenious ideas, which deserve to be mentioned. Mr. Adriano de Paiva was perhaps the first to think of an application of this nature……”. This French scientific journal mentions de Paiva again in 1881 [53] p. 341. But a more informative discussion of de Paiva’s contribution is made in a short article of Théodose du Moncel in the French journal La Lumière Électrique: Journal Universel d’Électricité [48]. Also representative of the impact of de Paiva is the reference in the 1892 Brockhaus’ Konversations-Lexikon to his proposed use of selenium [54].

André Lange examined the matter of scientific priority in detail, and he states that (translating from the French) “…… In his brochure ‘Le télectroscope’, Senlecq indicates that the idea of using selenium came to him ‘during the year 1877’. He makes the same claim in his letter to La Lumière Électrique, published by that journal in its issue of November 1, 1880 ([33]). [……]. In this case, he could claim priority over de Paiva, whose first publication dates from 1878 [……]. But there is no written proof of this. If we had to rely solely on the good faith of the inventors, then we would have to credit George R. Carey with primacy, since he claimed, in his notebook, to have thought of his electric selenium camera as early as January 1877……”.

The journal La Lumière Électrique published in 1880 a recension of the brochure of de Paiva, made by the count du Moncel [48]. The prompt publication of Senlecq’s letter, in the following issue of the journal, as mentioned above [33], led the journal to add, en passant, the observation “…… M. Senlecq discute ensuite avec M. de Paiva la nouveauté de ce que celui-ci prétend être son invention, mais, notre journal n’étant pas un champ de bataille pour les polémiques se rattachant à des questions de priorité, nous nous bornons à enregistreer les données précédentes ……”, translating, “…… Mr. Senlecq then discusses with Mr. de Paiva the novelty of what the latter claims to be his invention, but, our journal not being a battlefield for controversies relating to questions of priority, we limit ourselves to recording the preceding data ……”.

Senlecq also published in 1881 a brochure, ‘Le Télectroscope’ [35], in support of his claims, containing references to his idea and his papers; this initiative is, however, posterior to the previous publication by de Paiva, in 1880, of ‘La télescopie électrique: basée sur l’emploi du sélénium’ [3], which, as seen before, was sent to relevant scientific and technical journals and even exhibitions.

Claims that cannot be independently proved are weak claims; in the absence of convincing experimental proof of concept, only publication should support undisputed claims of scientific priority. As regards the transmission of images at a distance, for proposing a viable solution, such as the use of selenium, the priority must be attributed to Adriano de Paiva, through his 1878 paper in the O Instituto journal. Carey’s proposals are contemporary with de Paiva’s, and indeed there is a hand drawing of Carey’s from as early as 1877 foreseeing the proposal that was published in 1880. Carey’s drawing precedes de Paiva’s 1878 O Instituto paper, but publications of Carey’s proposals occurred in 1880.

One aspect of science communication is currently markedly different from what it was in the XIXth century. Adriano de Paiva published the same article twice: [1], reprinted in [3]; ‘Seeing by electricity’, describing Carey’s proposals, was reproduced—completely or in part—in more than one journal of the time ([34,55,56] among others). Nowadays this might qualify as self-plagiarism, a practice frowned at by the scientific community, and understandably so: even without self-plagiarism, there is already a deluge of scientific publications, which would be even greater if the same thing was published in several different journals. But the nature of the publications must be taken into account; most modern papers are of an incremental nature, frequently representing very small increments in knowledge, whereas the advancements mentioned here were potentially breakthrough inventions.

The 1878 article of de Paiva is also a reminder of the greater difficulties of scientists in obtaining due recognition when using a peripherical language as regards science. Adriano de Paiva understood that problem, and promoted the translation of his work into French and English (in the case of English through one of his students at the Academia Polytechnica do Porto, William Macdonald Smith).

5. The Evolution of the Interest in the Origins of Image Transmission

Big contributions to the revival of the interest in the early steps of image transmission at a distance may be attributed to several researchers in the second half of the XX century. Among these, mention should be made of George Shiers, with his papers in scientific and professional associations—a 1970 IEEE paper [57], 1977 Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers paper and its errata [58], and later compilation of a bibliography [59]; Russell W. Burns, with books published in the UK by the Institution of Engineering and Technology [38,60]; Albert Abramson, particularly his book [61] and paper [62]; Siegfried Zielinski [63]; and Mark Schubin [29], among others. Very recent surveys of television history were given by Lenny Lipton in 2021 [64] and Richard Hornsey in 2023 [65]. The chapters by Lipton [37,66] give a comprehensive description of the evolution of electric image transmission, and of the first steps of television, namely the already-mentioned demonstration of mechanical television to the Royal Institution by John Logie Baird in 1926.

In academia, the interest in the early times of television, or even earlier efforts in the electrical transmission of images, has been growing, with an increasing number of theses published on the subject. This is illustrated, e.g., by Russel W. Burns’ thesis at the University of Leicester [67], the doctoral thesis of António J. F. Leonardo at the Universidade de Coimbra discussing the Portuguese scientific panorama in the period 1852–1952 and including reference to de Paiva’s contribution [68], and the very well-documented PhD thesis of Paul Marshall at the University of Manchester [69], from which is extracted “The first known scientific treatise on ideas for “distant vision” came from a Portuguese scientist, Professor Adriano de Paiva, of the Polytechnic Academy of Porto. His treatise, “A telefonia, a telegrafia e a telescopia [Telephony, telegraphy and telescoping]”, was published in March 1878 in Portuguese. It was subsequently translated into English [……] in 1880……”.

6. Concluding Remarks

Image transmission at a distance is such a disruptive breakthrough that a discussion of scientific priority is not, in this case, a vain endeavor. In the absence of convincing experimental proof of concept, claims that cannot be independently proved are weak claims; only publication should support undisputed claims of priority.

As regards the transmission of images at a distance, for proposing the use of selenium, the scientific priority must be attributed to Adriano de Paiva, a professor at the Academia Polytechnica do Porto, through his 1878 paper in the journal O Instituto. Developments by many different individuals over more than four decades were necessary until the first convincing demonstration of mechanical television by John Logie Baird in 1926.