Édouard Belin

Who was Édouard Belin?

Édouard Belin was born in Vesoul, Haute-Saône on 5 March 1876, and died on 4 March 1963 in Territet, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland.

In 1907, Belin invented a phototelegraphic apparatus called the Bélinographe, a system for sending photographs over telephone and telegraphic networks. Around this time other scientists, such as Arthur Korn, had also been developing teechnology to transmit images over long distances. Belin's invention has been used for journalistic photos since 1914.

The process was improved in 1921 to enable to transmission of images by radio waves.

In this apparatus, the transmitter traverses the original image point by point. At each point a measurement of light intensity is made with an electric eye. The measurement is conveyed to the receiver. There, a variable intensity light source reproduces the light measured by the electric eye, while carrying out same displacements exactly. By doing this, it exposes the photographic paper and makes it possible to obtain a copy of the original image.