How Fourier Series Made Color Television Possible

by Alisa Vasserman

Submitted : Fall 2013

Before color television was introduced in the United States in 1953, television engineers had to solve a complex problem of transmitting the color signal simultaneously with the monochrome signal and within the same information bandwidth of 6 Mega cycles. It seemed impossible without enormous expense and difficulty. Most engineers at the time assumed that the whole bandwidth of the carrier frequency was completely filled with necessary information. In 1950, Frank Gray’s forgotten patent from 1930 was rediscovered. It described the process of frequency interleaving which revealed that most of the signal information occupied only certain parts of the band, leaving unfilled gaps. The application of Fourier series allowed Gray to represent periodic waveforms as sets of discrete frequencies, which in turn, made it possible to identify the exact location and width of the gaps.

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