The son of a merchant, Porfiry Bakhmetyev was fascinated by reading from a young age, especially scientific literature. His parents supported his interest by even purchasing foreign editions. In 1876, when Porfiry was only 16 years old, he read an article about the invention of the telephone. This inspired him, and he assembled two copies of a similar device. Perhaps this was the first telephone created in Russia. However, the peasants from his village, Lopukhivka, did not appreciate the invention and nicknamed him the Antichrist. This was Porfiry Ivanovich's first significant invention, who later wrote 104 scientific papers on physics and effectively laid the foundations of television.

While studying at the University of Zurich, Bakhmetyev became interested in the photoelectric properties of selenium. He recalled: "I had the idea to use the properties of selenium to create a device that would be to the eye what the telephone is to the ear." Porfiry Ivanovich suggested that an image could be broken down into elements, transmitted via cable, and then reassembled into a whole. He called this device a telephotograph. Although the method of signal transmission was theoretically perfect, its implementation required significant investment. Unfortunately, neither Swiss nor Russian specialists dared to invest in this innovation.

Nevertheless, Bakhmetyev did not abandon this direction. While heading the Department of Experimental Physics at Sofia University, he made important discoveries in thermoelectricity and ferromagnetism. In the later years of his life, Porfiry Ivanovich became interested in biology. He was the first to experimentally induce anabiosis in mammals and developed a thermoelectric thermometer for measuring temperature in insects. Unfortunately, his life was short: he suffered from a serious illness and died in 1913.