Today it is hard to imagine that the word "electrical engineering" was not known only about 100 years ago. It is not so easy to find a pioneer in experimental science as in theoretical science. It is written in textbooks: the law of Archimedes, the Pythagorean theorem, Newton's binomial, the Copernican system, Einstein's theory, the periodic table … But not everyone knows the name of the one who invented the electric light.
Who created a glass cone with metal hairs inside - an electric light bulb? It is not easy to answer this question. After all, this invention is associated with dozens of scientists. In their ranks is Pavel Yablochkov, whose brief biography is presented in our article. This Russian inventor stands out not only for his height (198 cm), but also for his work. His work marked the beginning of lighting with electricity. It is not for nothing that the figure of such a researcher as Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich still enjoys authority in the scientific community. What did he invent? The answer to this question, as well as many other interesting information about Pavel Nikolaevich, you will find in our article.
Origin, years of study
When Pavel Yablochkov (photoit is presented above) was born, there was cholera in the Volga region. His parents were frightened by the great plague, so they did not carry the child to the church for baptism. In vain, historians tried to find the name of Yablochkov in church records. His parents were small landowners, and Pavel Yablochkov's childhood passed quietly, in a large landowner's house with half-empty rooms, a mezzanine and orchards.
When Pavel was 11 years old, he went to study at the Saratov gymnasium. It should be noted that 4 years before that, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, a freethinker teacher, left this educational institution for the St. Petersburg Cadet Corps. Pavel Yablochkov did not study at the gymnasium for long. After some time, his family became very impoverished. There was only one way out of this situation - a military career, which has already become a real family tradition. And Pavel Yablochkov went to the Pavlovsk Royal Palace in St. Petersburg, which was called the Engineering Castle after its residents.
Yablochkov is a military engineer
The Sevastopol campaign at that time was still in the recent past (less than ten years have passed). It showed sailor prowess, as well as the high art of domestic fortifiers. Military engineering in those years was at a premium. General E. I. Totleben, who became famous during the Crimean War, personally nurtured the engineering school, where Pavel Yablochkov now studied.
His biography of these years is marked by living in the boarding school of Caesar Antonovich Cui, an engineer-general who taught at this school. This wasa talented specialist and even more gifted composer and music critic. His romances and operas live on today. Perhaps it was these years spent in the capital that were the happiest for Pavel Nikolaevich. Nobody pushed him, there were no patrons and creditors yet. The great insights had not yet come to him, however, the disappointments that later filled his whole life had not yet come.
The first failure befell Yablochkov when, after completing his studies, he was promoted to second lieutenant, sent to serve in the Fifth Sapper Regiment, which belonged to the Kyiv fortress garrison. Battalion reality, which Pavel Nikolayevich met, turned out to be a little like the creative, interesting life of an engineer that he dreamed of in St. Petersburg. The military man from Yablochkov did not work out: a year later he quit "due to illness".
First exposure to electricity
After that, the most unsettled period began in the life of Pavel Nikolayevich. However, it opens with one event that turned out to be very important in his future fate. A year after the resignation, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov suddenly finds himself in the army again. After that, his biography took a completely different path …
The future inventor is studying at the Technical Electroplating Institute. Here his knowledge in the field of "galvanism and magnetism" (the word "electrical engineering" while we have already said did not yet exist) expands and deepens. Many famous engineers and young scientists in their youth, like our hero, circled through life, trying on,looking closely, looking for something, until suddenly they found what they were looking for. Then no temptation could lead them astray. In the same way, 22-year-old Pavel Nikolaevich found his calling - electricity. Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich devoted his whole life to him. The inventions he made are all related to electricity.
Work in Moscow, new acquaintances
Pavel Nikolaevich finally leaves the army. He went to Moscow and soon headed the department of the telegraph service of the railway (Moscow-Kursk). Here he has a laboratory at his disposal, here you can already test some, albeit still timid, ideas. Pavel Nikolaevich also finds a strong scientific community that unites natural scientists. In Moscow, he learns about the Polytechnic Exhibition, which has just opened. It presents the latest achievements of domestic technology. Yablochkov has like-minded people, friends who, like him, are passionate about electric sparks - tiny man-made lightning! With one of them, Nikolai Gavrilovich Glukhov, Pavel Nikolayevich decides to open his own "business". This is a general electrical workshop.
Move to Paris, candle patent
However, their "case" burst. This happened because the inventors Glukhov and Yablochkov were not businessmen. In order to avoid a debt prison, Pavel Nikolayevich urgently travels abroad. In the spring of 1876, in Paris, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov received a patent for an "electric candle". This invention would not exist if it were not for previous advances in science. SoLet's briefly talk about them.
History of lamps before Yablochkov
Let's make a small historical digression dedicated to lamps in order to explain the essence of the most important invention of Yablochkov, without getting into the technical jungle. The first lamp is a torch. It has been known to mankind since prehistoric times. Then (before Yablochkov), first a torch was invented, then an oil lamp, then a candle, after some time a kerosene lamp and, finally, a gas lantern. All these lamps, with all their diversity, are united by one common principle: something burns inside them when combined with oxygen.
Invention of the electric arc
V. V. Petrov, a talented Russian scientist, in 1802 described the experience of using galvanic cells. This inventor received an electric arc, created the world's first electric artificial light. Lightning is natural light. Mankind has known about him for a long time, another thing is that people did not understand his nature.
Modest Petrov did not send his work written in Russian anywhere. It was not known about it in Europe, so for a long time the honor of opening the arc was attributed to the chemist Davy, the famous English chemist. Naturally, he knew nothing about Petrov's achievement. He repeated his experience 12 years later and named the arc after Volta, the famous Italian physicist. Interestingly, she has absolutely nothing to do with A. Volta himself.
Arc lamps and their inconveniences
The discovery of a Russian and English scientist gave impetus to the emergencefundamentally new arc lamps, electric. Two electrodes approached in them, an arc flashed, after which a bright light appeared. However, the inconvenience was that the carbon electrodes burned out after a while, and the distance between them increased. Eventually, the arc went out. It was necessary to constantly bring the electrodes closer together. Thus, a variety of differential, clock, manual and other adjustment mechanisms appeared, which, in turn, required vigilant observation. It is clear that each lamp of this kind was an extraordinary phenomenon.
The first incandescent lamp and its shortcomings
French scientist Jobar suggested using an electric incandescent conductor for lighting, rather than an arc. Shanzhi, his compatriot, tried to create such a lamp. A. N. Lodygin, a Russian inventor, brought it "to mind". He created the first practical incandescent light bulb. However, the coke rod inside her was very fragile and delicate. In addition, insufficient vacuum was observed in the glass flask, so he quickly burned this rod. Because of this, in the mid-1870s, it was decided to put an end to the incandescent lamp. The inventors returned to the arc again. And it was then that Pavel Yablochkov appeared.
Electric candle
Unfortunately, we do not know how he invented the candle. Perhaps the thought of it appeared when Pavel Nikolaevich was tormented with the regulators of the arc lamp he had installed. For the first time in the history of railways, it was installed on a steam locomotive (a special train that followed to the Crimea with the kingAlexander II). Perhaps the sight of the arc that suddenly flared up in his workshop sunk into his soul. There is a legend that in one of the Parisian cafes, Yablochkov accidentally put two pencils side by side on the table. And then it dawned on him: there is no need to bring anything together! Let the electrodes be close, because the fusible insulation that burns in the arc will be installed between them. Thus, the electrodes will burn and shorten at the same time! As they say, all ingenious is simple.
How Yablochkov's candle conquered the world
Yablochkov's candle was really simple in its design. And this was her great advantage. Businessmen who are not versed in technology, its meaning was available. That is why Yablochkov's candle conquered the world with unprecedented speed. Its first demonstration took place in the spring of 1876 in London. Pavel Nikolaevich, who had recently run away from creditors, returned to Paris as a well-known inventor. The campaign to exploit his patents came into being instantly.
A special factory was established that produced 8,000 candles daily. They began to illuminate the famous shops and hotels of Paris, the indoor hippodrome and the opera, the port in Le Havre. A garland of lanterns appeared on Opera Street - an unprecedented sight, a real fairy tale. Everyone had "Russian light" on their lips. He was admired in one of the letters by P. I. Tchaikovsky. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev also wrote to his brother from Paris that Pavel Yablochkov had invented something completely new in the field of lighting. Pavel Nikolaevich not without pridenoticed later that electricity spread around the world from the French capital and reached the courts of the king of Cambodia and the Persian Shah, and not vice versa - from America to Paris, as they say.
"Fading" candle
The history of science has been marked by amazing things! The entire electric lighting engineering of the world, headed by P. N. Yablochkov, for about five years, triumphantly moved, in essence, along a hopeless, false path. The candle festival did not last long, as did the material independence of Yablochkov. The candle did not immediately "extinguish", but it could not withstand the competition with incandescent lamps. Contributed to this significant inconvenience that she had. This is the lowering of the luminous point in the process of burning, as well as the fragility.
Of course, the work of Svan, Lodygin, Maxim, Edison, Nernst and other inventors of the incandescent lamp, in turn, did not immediately convince mankind of its advantages. Auer in 1891 installed his cap on a gas burner. This cap increased the brightness of the latter. Even then, there were cases when the authorities decided to replace the installed electric lighting with gas. However, already during the life of Pavel Nikolaevich, it was clear that the candle invented by him had no prospects. What is the reason that the name of the creator of the "Russian world" is firmly inscribed in the history of science to this day and has been surrounded by respect and honor for more than a hundred years?
Meaning of Yablochkov's invention
Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich was the first to approve in the minds of peopleelectric light. The lamp, which was very rare only yesterday, has already approached man today, has ceased to be some kind of overseas miracle, convinced people of its happy future. The turbulent and rather short history of this invention contributed to the solution of many urgent problems that faced the technology of that time.
Further biography of Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov
Pavel Nikolaevich lived a short life, which was not very happy. After Pavel Yablochkov invented his candle, he worked a lot both in our country and abroad. However, none of his subsequent achievements influenced the progress of technology as much as his candle. Pavel Nikolaevich put a lot of work into the creation of the first electrical engineering magazine in our country called "Electricity". He began to appear in 1880. In addition, on March 21, 1879, Pavel Nikolaevich read a report on electric lighting in the Russian Technical Society. He was awarded the Society's medal for his achievements. However, these signs of attention were not enough to ensure that Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov was provided with good working conditions. The inventor understood that in the backward Russia of the 1880s there were few opportunities for the implementation of his technical ideas. One of them was the production of electrical machines, which were built by Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. His brief biography is again marked by a move to Paris. Returning there in 1880, he sold a patent for a dynamo, after which he began preparations forparticipation in the World Electrotechnical Exhibition, held for the first time. Its opening was scheduled for 1881. At the beginning of this year, Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov devoted himself entirely to design work.
A short biography of this scientist continues with the fact that Yablochkov's inventions at the 1881 exhibition received the highest award. They deserve recognition outside of the competition. His authority was high, and Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich became a member of the international jury, whose tasks included reviewing the exhibits and deciding on the awarding of awards. It should be said that this exhibition itself was a triumph for the incandescent lamp. Since that time, the electric candle gradually began to decline.
In subsequent years, Yablochkov began to work on galvanic cells and dynamos - generators of electric current. The path that Pavel Nikolayevich followed in his works remains revolutionary in our time. Successes on it can usher in a new era in electrical engineering. Yablochkov no longer returned to the light sources. In the following years, he invented several electrical machines and received patents for them.
The last years of the inventor's life
In the period from 1881 to 1893, Yablochkov conducted his experiments in difficult material conditions, in continuous work. He lived in Paris, completely surrendering to the problems of science. The scientist skillfully experimented, applied many original ideas in his work, going in unexpected and very bold ways. Undoubtedly, he was ahead of the state of technology, science andindustry of that time. The explosion that occurred during the experiments in his laboratory almost cost Pavel Nikolaevich his life. The constant deterioration of the financial situation, as well as heart disease, which progressed all the time - all this undermined the strength of the inventor. After a thirteen-year absence, he decided to return to his homeland.
Pavel Nikolaevich left for Russia in July 1893, but fell very ill immediately upon arrival. He found such a neglected economy on his estate that he could not even hope for an improvement in his financial situation. Together with his wife and son, Pavel Nikolaevich settled in a Saratov hotel. He continued his experiments even when he was sick and deprived of his livelihood.
Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich, whose discoveries are firmly inscribed in the history of science, died of heart disease at the age of 47 (in 1894), in the city of Saratov. Our homeland is proud of his ideas and works.
