Nipkow, Paul

Born Aug. 22, 1860, in Lauenburg; died Aug. 24, 1940, in Berlin. German engineer.

In 1884, Nipkow was granted a patent for an opticomechanical device (“electron telescope”), called a Nipkow disk, for resolution of images into elements. It was intended for use in transmission and reception of television signals. The disk was used in the earliest television devices with mechanical scanning; its use was virtually abandoned after the introduction of electronic television systems.