Emmy award for Caithness inventor
WATTEN-born inventor Alexander Bain will tonight be honoured in Las Vegas for his contribution to the development of television almost 140 years after his death.
Bain, best known for trailblazing the electric clock, electric telegraph, and the fax machine, has been chosen for the Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for his pioneering work in the field of image transmission.
The breakthrough was his concept of scanning an image and then transmitting it so it could be for the first time transmitted from one location to another. He also introduced the concepts of scan lines, pixels and frame and line synchronisation used in all modern television systems.
Bain made a considerable fortune in his inventions but lost his wealth in poor investments. He died on January 2, 1877, in poverty and was buried in Kirkintilloch.
Bain is still remembered in Caithness with the village welcome signs at Watten while the Wetherspoons in Wick in named after him.
Read more in this weekend's John O'Groat Journal.
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