Lectures on Physics has been derived from Benjamin Crowell's Light and Matter series of free introductory textbooks on physics. See the editorial for more information....

A television tube

A TV picture is painted by a stream of electrons coming from the back of the tube to the front. The beam scans across the whole surface of the tube like a reader scanning a page of a book. Magnetic forces are used to steer the beam. As the beam comes from the back of the tube to the front, up-down and left-right forces are needed for steering. But magnetic forces cannot be used to get the beam up to speed in the first place, since they can only push perpendicular to the electrons' direction of motion, not forward along it.




Last Update: 2009-06-21