Teacher's Tube

Assistant Physics Professor Willard Geer of the University of Southern California liked to tell his class to go out and invent something. Once, while lecturing them on the "scanning disk" method of color television (TIME, Nov. 28), he suggested that better reception could be had with an electronic tube— if someone would invent one. When he mentioned it to his wife that night, she said: "You'd better get busy and invent it yourself."

Geer and his wife set to work in their home laboratory. They converted a sewing machine into a diesinking machine,...