How stuff works (Television)

Television converts light waves and sound waves into electrical messages. A television camera records the scene and turns it into radio waves which gets transferred to an antenna. In a television camera, the surface that picks up the picture has chemicals coated onto the surface. When light hits it, the chemicals transform. Inside the tube where this mayhem takes place, a gun shoots a beam of electric particles onto the chemically coated area. The beam gets altered and picks up the light and dark areas on the surface. Then the electron beam gets reflected back to the gun where it is converted into an electrical signal which gets converted into radio waves. Once the signal gets transformed back into beams inside devices and mechanisms inside a television set, the beam hits a screen coated with chemicals. Then, the screen lights up and you have an image on the screen.