Most people who claim they do not understand physics, or who wonder if physics is important to learn about, do not realize that they probably spend two or more hours a day staring at complex multiple physics in action -- their color television sets (Dasgupta, 1994, 62). There they see in operation quantum physics (QP), molecular physics (MP), biophysics (BP), electrophysics (EP), spectralphysics (SP) and astrophysics (AP) -- to name just the more obvious (Basalla, 1988, 62). This analysis is a survey of how each of these branches of physics combine to create the medium of color television. To save space, the abbreviations of the physics fields will follow each application.
A safe place to start is with electromagnetic (EM) field which is generated by charged particles, such as electrons (EP, QP). All electrically charged particles are surrounded by electric fields (Dasgupta ,1994, 104). Charged particles in motion produce magnetic fields. When the velocity of a charged particle changes, an EM field is produced. Electromagnetic fields were first discovered in the 19th century, when physicists noticed that electric arcs (sparks) could be reproduced at a distance, with no connecting wires in between (Petroski, 1993, 31). This led scientists to believe that it was possible to communicate over long distances without wires. The first radio transmitters made use of electric arcs (EP, QP, SP).
These "spark transmitters" and the associated receivers were as exciting to people in the early 20th century as the Internet is today. This was the beginning of what we now call wireless communication, and was the birth of TV. In 1884, a German physicist, Paul Nipkow, who had been studying the light spectrum (SP) and invented a simple wheel with holes in it, which, when spun in front of a light force diffracted and diffused the light waves sufficiently to cast an image (SP, EP, QP) (Petroski, 1993, 31).
Though it became the basis f...