That time Baird, one of the inventors of TV, tried to use a human eyeball as an optic device

gistfile1.txt

-SOURCE: http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/11/119.html

In 1928 Baird convinced a London surgeon to lend him

an eyeball removed from a young man's head. In his own

words...

"As soon as I was given the eye, I hurried in a

taxicab to the laboratory. Within a few minutes I had the

eye in the machine. Then I turned on the current and the

waves carrying television were broadcast from the aerial.

The essential image for television passed through the eye

within half and hour after the operation. On the

following day the sensitiveness of the eye's visual nerve

was gone. The optic was dead. I had been dissatisfied

with the old-fashioned selenium cell and lens. I felt

that television demanded something more refined. The most

sensitive optical substance known is the nerve of the

human eye... I had to wait a long time to get the eye

because unimpaired ones are not often removed by

surgeons... Nothing was gained from the experiment. It

was gruesome and a waste of time."

- SOURCE: http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/11/119.html