inventions of the 19th century. From grateful descendants

The inventions of the 19th century laid the scientific and practical foundation for the discoveries and inventions of the 20th century. The nineteenth century became the springboard for the breakthrough of civilization. In this article I will talk about the most significant and outstanding scientific achievements of the nineteenth century. Tens of thousands of inventions, new technologies, fundamental scientific discoveries. Cars, aviation, spacewalks, electronics… You can list for a long time. All this became possible in the 20th century thanks to the scientific and technological inventions of the nineteenth century.

Unfortunately, in one article it is impossible to tell in detail about each invention created in the century before last. Therefore, in this article, all inventions will be described as briefly as possible.

inventions of the 19th century. The Age of Steam. rails

The nineteenth century was golden for steam engines. Invented in the eighteenth century, it was increasingly improved, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was used almost everywhere. Plants, factories, mills...
And in 1804, the Englishman Richard Trevithick installed a steam engine on wheels. And the wheels rested on metal rails. It turned out the first steam locomotive. Of course, it was very imperfect and was used as an amusing toy. The power of the steam engine was only enough to move the locomotive itself, and a small cart with passengers. The practical use of this design was out of the question.

But after all, a steam engine can be put more powerful. Then the steam locomotive will be able to carry more cargo. Of course, iron is expensive and the creation of a railway will cost a pretty penny. But the owners of coal mines and mines knew how to count money. And from the middle of the thirties of the century before last, the first steam locomotives went along the plains of the Metropolis, hissing steam and scaring away horses and cows.

Such clumsy constructions made it possible to sharply increase the turnover. From the mine to the port, from the port to the steel furnace. It became possible to smelt more iron, and from it to create more machines. So the steam locomotive dragged technical progress forward.

inventions of the 19th century. The Age of Steam. Rivers and seas

And the first steamboat that was ready for practical use, and not just another toy, splashed down the Hudson with paddle wheels in 1807. Its inventor, Robert Fulton, installed a steam engine on a small riverboat. The engine power was not great, but still the steamer made up to five knots per hour without the help of the wind. The steamer was a passenger one, but at first few people dared to step aboard such an unusual design. But gradually things got better. After all, steamships were less dependent on the vagaries of nature.

In 1819 the Savannah, a vessel with sailing equipment and an auxiliary steam engine, crossed for the first time Atlantic Ocean. For most of the journey, the sailors used a fair wind, and the steam engine was used during calm. And 19 years later, the steamship Sirius made the crossing of the Atlantic only with the help of steam.

In 1838, the Englishman Francis Smith installed a propeller instead of bulky paddle wheels, which was much smaller and allowed the ship to reach greater speed. With the introduction of screw steamers, the centuries-old era of handsome sailboats came to an end.

inventions of the 19th century. Electricity

In the nineteenth century, experiments with electricity led to the creation of many devices and mechanisms. Scientists and inventors conducted many experiments, deduced the fundamental formulas and concepts used in our 21st century.

In 1800, the Italian inventor Alessandro Volta assembles the first galvanic cell- the prototype of the modern battery. A disc of copper, then a cloth soaked in acid, then a piece of zinc. Such a sandwich creates electrical voltage. And if you connect such elements together, you get a battery. Its voltage and power directly depend on the number of galvanic cells.

1802, Russian scientist Vasily Petrov, having designed a battery of several thousand elements, receives a Voltaic arc, a prototype of modern welding and a light source.

In 1831, Michael Faraday invented the first electrical generator that could convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. Now there is no need to burn yourself with acid and collect countless metal mugs together. On the basis of this generator, Faraday creates an electric motor. So far, these are still demonstration models that clearly show the laws of electromagnetic induction.

In 1834, the Russian scientist B. S. Yakobi designed the first electric motor with a rotating armature. This motor can already find practical application. The boat, driven by this electric motor, goes against the current along the Neva, carrying 14 passengers.

inventions of the 19th century. Electric lamp

Since the forties of the nineteenth century, experiments have been going on to create incandescent lamps. A current passed through a thin metal wire heats it up to a bright glow. Unfortunately, the metal hair burns out very quickly, and the inventors are struggling to increase the life of the light bulb. Various metals and materials are used. Finally, in the nineties of the nineteenth century, the Russian scientist Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin presents the electric light bulb that we are used to. This is a glass flask from which air is pumped out; a spiral of refractory tungsten is used as a filament.

inventions of the 19th century. Telephone

In 1876, American Alexander Bell patented the "talking telegraph", the prototype of the modern telephone. This device is still imperfect, the quality and range of communication leave much to be desired. There is no call familiar to everyone and to call a subscriber you need to whistle into the phone with a special whistle.
Literally a year later, Thomas Edison improved the telephone by installing a carbon microphone. Now subscribers do not need to yell heart-rendingly into the phone. The communication range increases, a familiar handset and a call appear.

inventions of the 19th century. Telegraph

The telegraph was also invented in the early nineteenth century. The first samples were very imperfect, but then there was a qualitative leap. The use of an electromagnet made it possible to send and receive messages faster. But the existing legend about the inventor of the telegraph alphabet, Samuel Morse, is not entirely true. Morse invented the very principle of coding - a combination of short and long pulses. But the alphabet itself, numerical and alphabetic, was created by Alfred Weil. Telegraph lines eventually entangled the entire Earth. There were submarine cables linking America and Europe. The huge data transfer rate also made a significant contribution to the development of science.

inventions of the 19th century. Radio

Radio also appeared in the nineteenth century, at its very end. It is generally accepted that the first radio was invented by Marconi. Although his discovery was preceded by the work of other scientists, and in many countries the primacy of this inventor is often questioned.

For example, in Russia, Alexander Stepanovich Popov is considered the inventor of the radio. In 1895, he introduced his device, called the lightning detector. Lightning during a thunderstorm caused an electromagnetic pulse. From the antenna, this pulse entered the coherer - a glass flask with metal filings. The electrical resistance sharply decreased, the current went through the wire winding of the bell electromagnet, a signal was heard. Then Popov repeatedly upgraded his invention. The transceivers were installed on warships of the Russian Navy, the communication range reached twenty kilometers. The first radio even saved the lives of fishermen who broke away on an ice floe in the Gulf of Finland.

inventions of the 19th century. Automobile

The history of the car also dates back to the nineteenth century. Of course, connoisseurs of history can also remember the steam car of the Frenchman Cugno, the first exit of which took place in 1770, by the way, the first exit ended and the first accident, the steam cart crashed into the wall. Cugno's invention cannot be considered a real car, it is more of a technical curiosity.
The inventor of the same real car that is suitable for everyday practical application, with a high degree of certainty can be considered Daimler Benz.

Benz made his first ride in his car in 1885. It was a three-wheeled carriage, with a gasoline engine, a simple carburetor, electric ignition and water cooling. There was even a differential! Engine power was just under one horsepower. The motor crew accelerated to 16 kilometers per hour, which, with a spring suspension and simple steering, was quite enough.

Of course, other inventions preceded the Benz car. So, a gasoline, or rather a gas, engine was created in 1860. It was a two-stroke engine that used a mixture of light gas and air as fuel. The ignition was spark. In its design, it resembled a steam engine, but it was lighter and did not require time to ignite the firebox. Engine power was about 12 horsepower.
In 1876, a German engineer and inventor, Nikolaus Otto, designed a four-stroke gas engine. It turned out to be more economical and quiet, although more complex. In the theory of internal combustion engines, there is even the term "Otto Cycle", named after the creator of this power plant.
In 1885, two engineers, Daimler and Maybach, designed a light and compact carburetor engine that runs on gasoline. This unit installs on its tricycle Benz.

In 1897, Rudolf Diesel assembles an engine in which the mixture of air and fuel is ignited by strong compression, and not by a spark. In theory, such an engine should be more economical than a carburetor. Finally the engine is assembled and the theory is confirmed. Trucks and ships now use engines called diesels.
Of course, dozens and hundreds of automotive little things are being invented, such as the ignition coil, steering, headlights, and much more, which made the car comfortable and safe.

inventions of the 19th century. Photo

In the 19th century, another invention appeared, without which existence seems to be unthinkable now. This photo.
Camera - obscura, a box with a hole in the front wall, has been known since ancient times. Even Chinese scientists noticed that if the room is tightly draped with curtains, and there is a small hole on the curtain, then on a bright sunny day, an image of the landscape outside the window appears on the opposite wall, although it is upside down. This phenomenon was often used by magicians and negligent artists.

But it wasn't until 1826 that Frenchman Joseph Niepce found a more practical use for a box that collects light. On the sheet of glass, Joseph applied a thin layer of asphalt varnish. Then the first photographic plate was installed in the apparatus and ... In order to get an image, it was necessary to wait about twenty minutes. And if this was not considered critical for landscapes, then those who wanted to capture themselves in eternity had to try. After all, the slightest movement led to a spoiled, blurry frame. And the process of obtaining an image was not yet like that which had become familiar in the twentieth century, and the cost of such a “picture” was very high.

A few years later, chemicals more sensitive to light appeared, now there was no need to sit, staring at one point and be afraid to sneeze. In the 1870s, photographic paper appeared, and ten years later, photographic film replaced heavy and fragile glass plates.

The history of photography is so interesting that we will definitely devote a separate large article to it.

inventions of the 19th century. Gramophone

But a device that allows you to record and reproduce sound appeared almost at the turn of the century. At the end of November 1877, the inventor Thomas Edison presented his next invention. It was a box with a spring mechanism inside, a long foil-covered cylinder, and a horn outside. When the mechanism was started, it seemed to many that a miracle had happened. From the metal bell came, albeit softly and unintelligibly, the sounds of a children's song about a girl who brought her lamb to school. And the song was sung by the inventor himself.
Edison soon improved this device, calling it the phonograph. Instead of foil, wax cylinders began to be used. Recording and playback quality has improved.

If instead of a wax cylinder a disc made of durable material is used, the volume and duration of the sound will increase. The first disk made of shell was used in 1887 by Emil Berlinner. The device, called the gramophone, gained great popularity, because it turned out to be much faster and cheaper to stamp records with records than to record music on soft wax cylinders.

And soon the first record companies appeared. But this is the history of the twentieth century.

inventions of the 19th century. Warfare

And of course, technological progress has not bypassed the military either. Of the most significant military inventions of the nineteenth century, one can note the massive transition from muzzle-loading smoothbore guns to rifled firearms. There were cartridges in which gunpowder and a bullet were a single whole. There was a bolt on the guns. Now the soldier did not have to separately pour gunpowder into the barrel, then insert the wad, then push the bullet and again the wad, wielding a ramrod during each operation. The rate of fire has increased several times.

The queen of the fields, artillery, has also undergone similar changes. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, gun barrels have become rifled, dramatically increasing the accuracy and range of fire. The loading now took place from the breech, and instead of the cores they began to use cylindrical shells. Gun barrels were no longer cast from cast iron, but from stronger steel.

Smokeless pyroxylin powder appeared, nitroglycerin was invented - an oily liquid that explodes with a small push or impact, and then dynamite - all the same - nitroglycerin mixed with binders.
The nineteenth century gave the generals and admirals the first machine gun, the first submarine, sea mines, unguided rockets and armored steel ships, torpedoes, and instead of red and blue uniforms, suitable only for parades, the soldiers received a comfortable and inconspicuous uniform on the battlefield. The electric telegraph began to be used for communication, and the invention of canned food greatly simplified the provision of food to the armies. Many of the wounded were saved by the invention of anesthesia in 1842.

inventions of the 19th century. Match

In the nineteenth century, a lot of things were invented, sometimes invisible in everyday life. Matches were invented, the most seemingly simple and ordinary thing, but for the appearance of this small wooden stick, the discoveries of chemists and designers were needed. Special machines were created for the mass production of matches.

1830 — Thomas McCall of Scotland invents the two-wheeler

1860 - Pierre Michaud from France modernizes the bike by adding pedals to it

1870 — James Starley of France creates a modification of a bicycle with a large wheel

1885 — John Kemp from Australia makes cycling safer

1960 race bike appears in the USA

In the mid-1970s, mountain biking appeared in the USA.

inventions of the 19th century. Stethoscope

Remember going to the doctor - the therapist. A cold touch to the body of a metal round, the command "Breathe - do not breathe." This is a stethoscope. He appeared in 1819 due to the reluctance of the French physician Rene Laennec to put the ear to the body of the patient. At first, the doctor used tubes made of paper, then made of wood, and then the stethoscope was improved, it became even more convenient, and modern devices use the same principles of operation, the hundred and first paper tubes.

inventions of the 19th century. Metronome

To train beginning musicians to get a sense of rhythm, the nineteenth century invented the metronome, a simple mechanical device that clicked evenly. The frequency of sounds was regulated by moving a special weight on the scale of the pendulum.

inventions of the 19th century. metal feathers

The nineteenth century brought relief to the saviors of Rome - the geese. In the 1830s, metal feathers appeared, now there was no need to run after these proud birds in order to borrow a feather, and there was no need to correct steel feathers. By the way, the penknife was originally used for the constant sharpening of bird feathers.

inventions of the 19th century. ABC for the blind

While still a toddler, the inventor of the alphabet for the blind, Louis Braille became blind himself. This did not stop him from learning, becoming a teacher, and inventing special method three-dimensional printing, now the letters could be felt with your fingers. The Braille alphabet is still used today, thanks to it, people who have lost their sight or have been blind since birth were able to gain knowledge and get an intellectual job.

In 1836, an interesting structure appeared in one of California's endless wheat fields. Several horses pulled a wagon that made noise, creaked, screeched, frightened crows and respectable farmers. The wagon's wheels spun, the chains rattled, and the blades of knives gleamed. This mechanical monster was devouring wheat and spitting out straw that no one wanted. And the wheat accumulated in the belly of the monster. It was the first grain harvester. Later, harvesters became even more productive, but they also required more and more traction power, up to forty horses or oxen were pulled through the fields of mechanical monsters. At the end of the nineteenth century, the steam engine came to the aid of horses.

Achievements of scientific and technological progress were introduced into Russian life not fast enough, which was an inevitable consequence of the low level of education. At the beginning of the 19th century in the country as a whole, there were no more than 4-5% of literates (for comparison, in Japan during this period 40% of the population was literate). By the middle of the 19th century. the situation practically did not change for the better - only 6% of Russians were literate, despite the fact that the availability of education was introduced and a network of lower, secondary and higher educational institutions was created.

After the reforms of the 60-70s of the 19th century. some progress has been made in public education: the system of primary education has been expanded at the expense of free zemstvo and peasant schools, the secondary level has been improved, supplemented by real and women's gymnasiums which gave them the right to enter universities. New institutes and universities were opened. The right to enter any educational institution was granted to people from any class. However, changes for the better were slow: in 1897, only 21% of the inhabitants of Russia were literate. By this time, Japan, as well as developed Western countries, had long introduced compulsory primary education for all.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Russian science also developed more slowly than in the advanced countries of the world, however, compared with the level of domestic science of the previous period, the growth was tangible.

The greatest mathematician was N. I. Lobachevsky(1792 - 1856). The discoveries of Lobachevsky (1826) - the sum of the angles can be greater or less than 180 degrees, two parallel lines can intersect at infinity - made a revolution in ideas about the nature of space. In the West, these problems were developed simultaneously with Lobachevsky by prominent scientists K. F. Gauss and B. Riemann, who came to similar conclusions. In the second half of the 19th century the famous Petersburg School of Mathematics is formed, whose leaders were P. L. Chebyshev, A. N. Lyapunov, A. A. Markov. Their research contributed to the development of new branches of mathematics. Generally Russian mathematical thought in the 19th century first came to the level of world science.

A world-class achievement was the creation D. I. Mendeleev in 1869 Periodic table of chemical elements. Arranging the chemical elements in ascending order of their atomic weights, he established the periodic recurrence of their properties.

Astronomical thought originated in Russia in the 19th century. The most famous scientists were V. Ya. Struve(1793 - 1864), founder and first director of the Pulkovo Observatory, who established the fact of light absorption in interstellar space, and his son O. V. Struve who discovered more than 500 double stars.

The general social portrait of the intelligentsia, who mainly supplied personnel to science, looked at the end of the 19th century. thus. According to the 1897 census, there were 4,010 engineers and technologists throughout the country. (including four women), scientists and writers 3296 (284 women), doctors -16956. At the same time, there were 363,201 beggars, vagabonds, wanderers, pilgrims and fortune-tellers, and 97 million peasants.

Nevertheless, remarkable scientists and engineers worked and created in Russia at that time. One of them was Pavel Petrovich Anosov(1797 - 1851) - an outstanding metallurgist. The son of a petty official of the Bergcollegium - that was the name of the mining collegium then - in 1809 he was enrolled in the state kosht "at the expense of the Ural Ridge", i.e. for a scholarship from the funds of the chief manager of the mining plants of the Urals to one of the best educational institutions of that time - Mining cadet corps In Petersburg. After graduating with a big gold medal, he was assigned to the Zlatoust mining district.

A few years later he became the manager of an arms factory. Seeing the imperfection of the steel production technology that existed at that time, Anosov engaged in research aimed at improving the technology and speeding up the process. In 1837, in the "Mining Journal" appeared treatise Anosov "On the preparation of cast steel". The researcher made a real revolution in the technique of steel production. All further improvements in the 19th century. in this area are based on his discoveries.

The search for ways to obtain cast steel is closely related to the experiments in obtaining damask steel. A secret really hung over the production method of this unusually elastic and strong steel. Many scientists different countries unsuccessfully tried to solve it. Anosov approached this mystery as a deep researcher. He did not expect easy success, he knew that the path to victory lay through very long and persistent searches and experiments.

In March 1828 Anosov began his famous Journal of Experiments. It has 186 entries. To obtain damask steel, Pavel Petrovich tried a variety of materials of mineral and organic origin, different modes of melting and cooling.

Examining the resulting steel, for the first time in the world - this was in 1831 - he began to examine metal crystals through a microscope and saw "patterns similar in arrangement to damask". With this Anosov laid the foundations of a new science - metal science.

Many times Anosov was already almost at the goal, but he still failed to get damask steel. However, he stubbornly sought victory.

After long experiments, the researcher came to the conclusion that the nature of the

lata is explained by the purity of the starting materials and the mode of solidification of the metal.

“Iron and carbon and nothing more,” he wrote in his 1841 essay “On Bulat”, “it’s all about the purity of the starting materials, the method of cooling, and crystallization.” Anosov products made of damask steel turned out to be of such high quality that the greatest connoisseurs could not distinguish them from the best Indian ones.

Many years of work to find the secret of damask steel led Anosov to another extremely important discovery. By adding various chemical elements to the crucibles, Pavel Petrovich began to obtain steel with different properties. So, an increase of 1% manganese gave steel "strong", and an increase of 2% - steel, good "both in malleability and in sharpness". There were also patterns on this steel. Anosov carried out melting with chromium, titanium and many other elements. This was the beginning of the metallurgy of quality, or special, steels.

Anosov was engaged not only in metallurgy. He was a geologist, a chemist, and a designer. In geology, the “Anosov spirifer” is known (a genus of extinct brachiopods, found where there are marine deposits). The well-known English geologist Murchison, who visited the Urals at that time, admitted that Anosov's discovery made it possible to shed light on the entire history of the Ural Mountains in a new way.

Having become the head of the Zlatoust mining district and having risen to the rank of major general, Anosov everywhere planted advanced production methods. He waged a vigorous struggle against conservatism and disbelief in the talents of the people.

Anosov designed a gold-washing machine, which was used in all fields in Russia and abroad. According to Anosov's drawings, machines were installed at gold mines in Egypt.

A great contribution to the development of domestic and world science and technology was made by Boris Semenovich Jacobi(1801 - 1874). In 1834, a note about a new "magnetic machine" appeared in the memoirs of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Reporting on the electric motor invented by him, the author wrote: "This machine gives a direct constant circular motion, which is much easier to convert into other types of motion than reciprocating motion." The note was signed by a little-known Jacobi at that time.

The operation of the Jacobi electric motor was based on the attraction of opposite magnetic poles and the repulsion of like ones. This is the same phenomenon that causes the magnetic compass needle to turn one end to the north, the other to the south.

To switch the current in the winding, a special device was made - a collector. The electric motor rotated continuously and was invented so successfully that its main parts - a rotating electromagnet and a collector - are still preserved in all DC electric machines.

The inventor of this electric motor, Boris Semenovich Jacobi, was born in Potsdam, Germany. In 1823 he graduated from the University of Göttingen and, at the request of his parents, became an architect. But the young architect was more interested in physics. He took up the improvement of water engines, then became interested in electricity. A few years later, the first model of the new electric motor appeared, then the second.

In 1835, on the recommendation of prominent scientists, Jacobi was invited to Russia - to the University of Dorpat (now Tartu in Estonia). Here he took up the post of professor of architecture. Since then, Jacobi's entire life has been connected with Russia. He always emphasized that his inventions belonged to Russia, where the inventor found his second home.

The young professor of architecture gave all his free time to work on improving his electric motor.

In the summer of 1837, he was finally able to inform the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences that the engine he had created was working quite reliably.

Jacobi's invention became interested. He was called to St. Petersburg for experimental work on the use of electric motors on ships of the fleet. Here Jacobi began to work together with a remarkable scientist - Academician Lenz. With the assistance of the famous Admiral Kruzenshtern (who made the first Russian round-the-world trip), by 1839 they built two powerful electric motors for those times. One of them was installed on a large boat and rotated its paddle wheels. During the test, the boat with a crew of 14 people for several hours rose against the current of the Neva, struggling with the headwind and waves. It was the world's first electric ship.

The second Jacobi-Lenz engine rolled a trolley along the rails, in which a person could fit. This modest cart is the grandmother of a tram, trolley bus, electric train, electric car. True, it was not very convenient to sit in it: almost the entire place was occupied by the battery. other sources electric current did not know then.

Battery cells quickly failed: the zinc electrode in them collapsed, “burned out”, just like coal burns in the furnace of a steam engine. But coal was cheap, and zinc was very expensive in those days. Running an electric motor with batteries cost 12 times more than running a steam engine!

It was necessary to get cheap electric current. Jacobi began to carefully study galvanic cells. And this hard work gave an unexpected result,

Once, while examining the electrode of Daniel's disassembled element, Jacobi noticed that the layer of copper deposited on the electrode was easily separated. Every roughness, every smallest scratch of the electrode was imprinted on it!

Jacobi hung a copper coin instead of an electrode. After some time, it was covered with a layer of copper. Having removed this layer, Jacobi saw the imprint of a coin on it. Only the imprint was reversed. But what if you make a new coin in this way?

Jacobi suspended this imprint instead of an electrode and turned on the element. A few hours have passed... It's time! Taking out the electrode heated by the current, Jacobi carefully divided it into two parts. In one hand there was an imprint of a coin, in the other - a brand new copper coin, exactly like the first! It was, as it were, fashioned by the current of a galvanic cell. Therefore, Jacobi called his discovery electroplating.

But is it possible to adapt electroforming to any business? Of course, it is unprofitable to make poor coins in this way, they will cost more than silver ones. Jacobi began to try to get copies from a wide variety of items. One day the engraver brought a new copper plate for the front door. The inscription was carved on it: "Professor B. S. Jacobi." Of course, the board immediately suffered the fate of all the metal objects in the house: it became an electrode. And soon Jacobi already held the imprint of the tablet in his hands. The incised letters of the inscription on the print became convex. The scientist smeared them with paint and pressed them to paper. The lettering came out great!

Now Jacobi has finally found a use for his discovery. Can make precise shapes for printing. Paper money was already being printed in Russia. Copper engraved boards quickly wore out. I had to order new ones. But even the most skilled engravers could not accurately repeat the previous drawing. The money was different. Now this is over!

The discovery of electroforming received worldwide recognition. In St. Petersburg, an enterprise was created that successfully produced bas-reliefs and statues by electroplating for decorating St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Hermitage, the Winter Palace, gilded roofing sheets for spiers and domes, reproduced copper copies from forms for printing not only money, but also geographical maps, postage stamps, art engravings.

Jacobi also worked a lot for the benefit of Russian science and industry. He improved the electric telegraph, a year earlier S. Morse had created a telegraph typewriter, was the first to use the earth as a return wire, and invented a lead-sheathed underground cable. Jacobi improved mines with an electric fuse, created rheostats and resistance standards, invented a new method for manufacturing standards of measures and weights.

Jacobi's inventions not only helped the development of technology and the enlightenment of the people. They enriched enterprising breeders and manufacturers who produced new products. But the inventor himself, recognized by the whole world, elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, awarded gold medals from various scientific societies, did not get rich. On the grave of B. S. Jacobi there is a bust made using electroforming.

An outstanding scientist - metallurgist was D.K. Chernov(1839 - 1921). Dmitry Konstantinovich Chernov was born in St. Petersburg in the family of a petty official. He studied well at the gymnasium and after graduation he entered the Institute of Technology. At the age of 19, the young man brilliantly graduated from it, having received a diploma in process engineering. For outstanding achievements in mathematics, he was left at the institute as a teacher. During these years, he was also a volunteer at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. After graduating, Chernov continued to teach mathematics at the Technological Institute. At the same time, he is an assistant to the head of a large scientific and technical library. But pure mathematics attracted him less than the world of technology. Therefore, when a young teacher was invited to work as an engineer at the newly built Obukhov steel plant near St. Petersburg, he immediately agreed.

This happened in 1866. At that time, steel was just beginning to enter production all over the world. And the Obukhov plant began the production of new guns - not from bronze, as they were recently made, but from steel.

The first Russian steel cannon was made in 1860 in the Urals. This was an outstanding event in the Russian steel industry. At the World Exhibition of 1862 in London, this gun surpassed the guns presented here, by Western European countries and America, and received the highest rating and prize.

However, cannon production in Russia still could not be called well-established. Large-caliber guns made at the Obukhov plant often burst at the first shot. The reason for this could not be established. The chemical composition of the steel was considered impeccable; the casting seemed to be treated in the same way. It has already been said that the production of steel tools in Russia will be stopped and orders transferred to foreign factories.

And it was here that the discovery of D.K. Chernov saved the matter. He established the critical heating points of the metal, now known to the whole world under the name of "Chernov points".

The scientist tirelessly searched for the cause of the destruction of the guns. Carefully studying the places where the guns burst, he found that the steel here has a coarse-grained structure. The structure of the metal of those guns that did not burst was fine-grained. Therefore, the reason for the marriage lay not in chemical composition steel, but in different casting processing.

Watching the manufacture of steel ingots, Chernov saw how, heating up, they successively passed through all the colors of heat - from dark red to dazzling white. And when the metal slowly cooled in the air, it also consistently lost these colors; but suddenly the darkening mass of the cooling metal seemed to flare up, and then calmly cooled down again. Chernov endlessly repeated the experiment, and each time this phenomenon was repeated.

The scientist realized that he had discovered some very important law, allowing him to know the mysterious life of metal. He began to compare the hardening of ingots, heated and not heated to a critical point. It turned out that the ingots heated below the critical temperature did not harden at all, remained "soft". Chernov called this critical heating point (about 700°), at which the metal acquires a dark cherry color, the A point, or hardening point.

Meanwhile, the researcher persistently continued to search for the conditions under which coarse-grained or fine-grained steel is formed. For days on end, he did not leave the forge, closely watching how the blanks were forged. And he discovered another critical point in the behavior of the metal, which he called the point AT.

Chernov found that when a metal is heated to red heat, its surface becomes wrinkled, as if peeling off. At this moment, the forging goes to the point AT(800 ... 850 ° for ordinary steel). Then, remaining the same red color, the surface of the metal again changes its appearance. From shiny, oily, as if marble, it turns into a matte, similar to gypsum. It turned out that during all these transformations of the metal, barely perceptible to the eye, its structure changes - it becomes fine-grained.

Chernov's discoveries made a real revolution in metallurgy. It became possible to obtain steel with excellent mechanical properties, processing it with the help of heat, according to the method discovered by him.

Dmitry Konstantinovich persistently continued his work; revealing new secrets of steel. The scientist wanted to understand the phenomena that occur in the cooling metal. For many years he carefully studied the crystallization of various substances, patiently grew salt and alum crystals, followed the various conditions for freezing water, considering these phenomena as a process of crystallization. Long years of research allowed Chernov to penetrate the secrets of ingots. He was the first in the world to understand that steel ingots are the result of crystallization of molten metal. He explained why the metal in the center of the ingot is looser than on its surface, how bubbles, shrinkage cavities, and voids form in the casting, which occurs during steel hardening.

Finding laws to consciously govern the steel-making process was essential at the time. Without this, metallurgy could no longer be improved. Therefore, the discoveries of D.K. Chernov were especially valuable.

But suddenly, suddenly, his active research was interrupted. Due to disagreements with the new director of the Obukhov plant, the direct and principled Chernov had to resign.

Removal from what he loved did not break him mental strength. He went to the south of Russia, to the Bakhmut district, Yekaterinoslav province, to explore the deposits of rock salt. And his extraordinary gift of observation, his generalizing mind, manifested itself in a new field. By subtle signs, he learned to judge the deposits of the earth's interior and managed to discover the richest deposits of rock salt near Bryantsevka. Now it is the area of ​​the largest salt mines.

When the bitterness of the undeserved insult subsided, Chernov returned to St. Petersburg to work in engineering. In 1886, he entered the position of chief inspector at the Ministry of Railways, and in 1889 he received an invitation to head the department of metallurgy at the St. Petersburg Artillery Academy. Dmitry Konstantinovich gave thirty years of his life to work at this academy, raising several generations of military metallurgists.

Simultaneously with his studies at the academy, he did not interrupt his research, finding new ways of processing steel. He developed such bold projects that even today are just beginning to be implemented. So, Chernov found a way to obtain steel directly from ore, created a project for a melting furnace for this.

Chernov's work is surprisingly multifaceted. Dealing with the problem of steel processing all his life, at the same time, back in 1893, he created a model of an aircraft. He also studied botany and astronomy.

D. K. Chernov as a metallurgical scientist was recognized by the whole world. His discoveries transformed metallurgy from a craft and "art" based only on experience into exact science based on certain laws of nature. His works largely contributed to the fact that it was steel that became the basis of modern technology and took the leading place in metallurgy.

World science called him "the father of modern metallography." An obituary written abroad in the year of the scientist's death said: "Such a wonderful life, which has received world recognition, does a great honor to Russia."

Russian electrical engineer Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov(1847 - 1894) is the inventor of an arc lamp without a regulator - an electric candle, the prototype of a modern lighting lamp.

Pavel Nikolaevich loved technology since childhood. At the age of 12, he designed a land measuring instrument, which was used for a long time by the peasants of the Serdobsky district. Yablochkov's father, a poor landowner in the Saratov province, sent the boy to the St. Petersburg Military School. There, Yablochkov became especially interested in physics and its still little-studied area, electricity. With great joy he would have devoted his life to science, but after completing the course he had to serve as a sapper officer in the Kyiv fortress.

The young man was sad. The daily routine of work weighed heavily on him. It was only when he was sent to study at the "Officer Galvanic Classes" that he felt truly happy. Petersburg again, lectures by prominent scientists, including Academician Jacobi. After graduating, Yablochkov firmly decided to break with military service and resigned at the first opportunity.

started new life. Yablochkov settled in Moscow and took the post of head of the telegraph office of the newly built Moscow-Kursk railway. He met with inventors, attended meetings of learned societies, equipped a workshop where he could set up experiments and build the instruments he needed.

After the experiments of the inventor Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin(1847 - 1923), who developed several types of incandescent lamps, Yablochkov became interested in electricity as a source of light. But, unlike Lodygin, he went the other way. He took up arc lamps,

The phenomenon of an arc, i.e., an electric discharge that occurs between two closely spaced carbon rods - electrodes, was discovered in 1802 by Vasily Petrov, a professor at the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. However, the coals located opposite each other quickly burned out, the distance between them increased, and the arc died out. Inventors from different countries came up with several regulators of the distance between the coals, but they were all complex, bulky, often breaking devices.

Yablochkov carefully tested all known systems of regulators. He worked very enthusiastically and even left the service, which took up a lot of time. But money was needed for the experiments, and then, together with his friend, he opened a mechanical workshop and a shop for physical instruments. However, the young inventor had no commercial ability and things were not going well.

Yablochkov was in poverty, but he held firm. He made hundreds of experiments in search of a suitable insulating substance. He also solved another serious problem - "crushing the light", ensuring that several lamps could be included in one circuit.

The research was already close to completion, when Yablochkov suddenly had to give up everything and leave for Paris: he became entangled in debt, in addition, the police became interested in him, as politically unreliable. I had to go into hiding to avoid arrest.

The Parisian life of the inventor differed little from Moscow: work in the workshop and experiments, experiments without end ...

They say that once sitting in a cafe, Pavel Nikolaevich accidentally put two pencils on the table in front of him - parallel to one another, and when he looked at them, he took his breath away: after all, this is exactly how, parallel to each other, you can arrange the coals of Petrov's arc!

Yablochkov immediately began new experiments. Two coals placed vertically were separated by an insulating layer of kaolin. An arc lit up between the coals. No adjustment was needed. The coals burned evenly, they were mounted on a simple stand, and the distance between them remained unchanged. The kaolin evaporated as the coals burned. This "candle" was easy to make and very cheap.

Yablochkov also solved the difficult task of "crushing the light." The fact is that Yablochkov's candles burned at low voltage. They were turned on several pieces in series, just as we now turn on small light bulbs in garlands to illuminate Christmas trees. But with a serial connection, as soon as one candle turned off or went out due to some kind of malfunction, the current circuit broke and all the other candles went out, as if on command.

To get around this difficulty, Yablochkov used a system of induction coils - each candle or group of candles was supplied with a coil with two windings. The primary windings of all the coils were constantly included in the circuit. The alternating current flowing through them induced an electromotive force in the secondary windings. As soon as the switch was closed in any of the secondary windings, the candle would light up. And when the switch was opened, the candle went out, but the rest could burn: after all, the primary winding remained on, and the current in the entire circuit was not interrupted.

In 1876 Yablochkov's invention was patented. His candles lit up the streets and squares of Paris, London, Berlin.

Yablochkov gave all his money received for the invention to a French company in order to redeem the right to produce candles in his homeland ...

Pavel Nikolaevich returned to Russia. The capital met him enthusiastically. In 1879, many streets of St. Petersburg were lit with Yablochkov's candles. Pavel Nikolayevich gave lectures on electric lighting with great success. The "Partnership of Yablochkov - Inventor and Co." was created.

However, the same lack of commercial abilities did not allow Yablochkov to consolidate his success. Many inventors began to modify the candle, other lamps appeared that competed with the Yablochkov lamp. The partnership has collapsed. Pavel Nikolayevich was again forced to leave for Paris. There he took up the task of obtaining electricity directly from the chemical energy of coal.

Once during the experiments in Yablochkov's apartment there was a strong explosion. He had a detrimental effect on the health of Pavel Nikolaevich. Seriously ill Yablochkov came to Russia and settled in Saratov. There he died. Until the last days, there was a table with instruments in front of the sofa on which he lay, and Yablochkov carried out his research.

Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin(1847 - 1923) is also a remarkable Russian electrical engineer - the inventor of the carbon incandescent lamp, one of the founders of electrothermy.

Lodygin was born in the Tambov province. All the men in his family were military men, and Alexander Nikolayevich was also sent first to the Voronezh Cadet Corps, and then to the Moscow Cadet School. But he was indifferent to drill and the calling of an army officer. While still at school, he began to invent a flying machine and gave her all his free hours.

Lodygin's flying machine was a helicopter, or, as we now say, a helicopter. The inventor himself called it "electroplane". Lodygin also developed another "electroplane" - with flapping wings, but neither one nor his other car was built.

When designing his flying machines, Lodygin thought about lighting them during night flights. It was necessary to create lamps that would not need constant supervision and adjustment. Arc lamps at that time had complex and imperfect regulators, and each lamp needed a special dynamo to power it. In addition, the light of the lamps was very strong, and from their heat an electric plane could flare up. The incandescent lamp seemed to Lodygin more suitable. However, although many inventors in different countries worked on incandescent lamps, none has yet been put into practice.

Gradually, Lodygin devoted himself entirely to the search for a simple and inexpensive incandescent lamp. He knew that many inventors tried to incandescent wires of various metals, rods of coal and graphite. But all these materials burned in air or in a glass container for a very short time.

Not relying on everything that had been done before him, Alexander Nikolaevich again began to test all these materials. He was assisted by a talented electrical engineer V. F. Didrikhson.

Lodygin soon became convinced that the best “heating body” was coal, and undertook new experiments on heating pieces of coke. However, they quickly burned out in the open air. The inventor began to heat them up in closed vessels, thinking that the oxygen in the vessel would quickly burn out and the heated body, remaining in a nitrogen environment, would burn out more slowly.

Lodygin's first lamp was a hermetically sealed glass cylinder. Metal conductors were passed through its covers. To one conductor, the current went from a galvanic battery or from a dynamo through an insulated wire. After passing through the carbon rod, the current through another conductor left the lamp and returned to the source. To turn off any lamp in the circuit, it was enough to turn the rod, which short-circuited both metal covers. Then the current did not reach the carbon rod. Lodygin's lamp burned for only 30-40 minutes. Then the coals burned out, and it was necessary to change them. Constantly working on improving the lamp, Lodygin began to introduce two and even four carbon rods into the cylinder. When the first burned out, the next one began to heat up already with the burnt out oxygen and burned longer. The best result was given by pumping air out of the cylinder. After this operation, the lamp burned for several hours. True, Lodygin could not achieve a strong rarefaction of the air. The pump with which he and his assistants pumped out air was imperfect.

However, despite all the shortcomings of the lamp, it was a victory.

In 1873, Lodygin lit up one of the streets of St. Petersburg with his lamps. The success was great, but the funds did not increase. Lodygin worked either as a fitter in the Sirius gas lighting society, or as a toolmaker in the St. Petersburg Arsenal. Only once did the Academy of Sciences help the inventor by awarding him the Lomonosov Prize of 1,000 rubles. Of course, this money was spent on experiments to improve the quality of the lamp.

In order to obtain the funds necessary for work, Lodygin founded the Electric Lighting Partnership. The shares were sold out at first quite briskly and brought some income. The inventor breathed more freely. But at the beginning of 1875 the "partnership" went bankrupt. Without any support, Lodygin nevertheless continued to work. In the autumn of 1875, his lamps illuminated the underwater works on the Neva during the construction of a new bridge.

In 1878, the inventor P.N. came to Russia from France. Yablochkov , and everyone's attention was drawn to his arc lamps.

Interest in the Lodygin lamp fell. Meanwhile, an American inventor found out about her Thomas AlvaEdison(1847 - 1931). A man of quick and practical mind, he immediately understood the great importance of electric light and began to develop his own incandescent lamp, which he succeeded brilliantly.

So, Lodygin's lamp went abroad, and soon the inventor followed it. He also worked for the Westinghouse firm in New York. Interested in electrometallurgy, he designed electric furnaces. The work was interesting, but Lodygin was homesick. In 1905, he returned to Russia, hoping that after the revolutionary storm that had swept through, the country would begin to develop faster and his abilities would find application. But reaction raged in Russia. Almost all electrical enterprises belonged to German firms, and Lodygin was offered a job only by the St. Petersburg Tram Administration, which needed a substation manager. Lodygin again went to America.

He was a builder and mechanic, oilman, hydraulic engineer and shipbuilder, scientist and inventor. Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov(1853 - 1939). His voice has never been heard from the department of an educational institution, but entire generations of Russian engineers proudly consider themselves to be his students and followers. And although technical thought is developing with incredible speed these days, Shukhov's inventions will not lose their practical significance for a long time.

Vladimir Grigoryevich graduated from the Moscow Higher Technical School in 1876. Highly appreciating his brilliant abilities and extensive knowledge, he was offered to stay to work at the school. Shukhov was persuaded to do the same by his teacher - the creator of Russian aviation - N.E. Zhukovsky and the great Russian mathematician P.L. Chebyshev. But V.G. Shukhov wanted to see the fruits of his labor for himself. He was not satisfied that his discoveries or mathematical formulas would ever be used by anyone. No, what he invented and came up with, what today lay down in the form of clear lines on a smooth sheet of drawing paper, only with his direct participation should acquire quite tangible forms of a new machine or construction tomorrow.

V. G. Shukhov accepted the position of chief engineer in a small private company. The beginning of his work coincided with a period of rapid development of Russian industry. In St. Petersburg, in Moscow, in different regions of Russia, railways and new factories were built, and the extraction of ore, coal, and oil increased.

According to the projects carried out under the direct supervision of V. G. Shukhov, more than five hundred steel bridges were built on the railways of Russia.

The work of V. G. Shukhov gave a brilliant solution in its simplicity for the design and manufacture of metal structures of bridges and buildings, which is the basis of modern construction.

It is hard to imagine how much effort was spent earlier on dressing knots and joints of steel profiles. Instead of complex hinges, Shukhov proposed a simple riveted connection.

Accurate marking of holes for rivets is still carried out according to Shukhov's templates from thin iron sheets. A full-size schematic drawing of the future connection is transferred to them.

Extremely interesting are the works of V. G. Shukhov on the construction of metal mesh shells, the possibilities of which have not yet been fully used. According to these projects of Shukhov, a pavilion was built at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition of 1896, a radio tower was erected in Moscow, where transmitting television and radio antennas are still installed.

What does oil refining technology have in common with construction? As if nothing. However, Shukhov is not only the builder of the Moscow Radio Tower, but also the inventor of a wonderful method of oil refining - the cracking process. In almost all countries of the world, oil is processed into gasoline and other products according to its method.

All oil pipelines through which it is pumped over long distances are calculated according to the formulas of V. G. Shukhov. Steel tanks for storing gasoline and oil are being built according to samples first built by V. G. Shukhov. And if you see oil barges submerged almost to the very deck, then you should know that they were also built according to the calculations of this remarkable Russian engineer.

And here is another vast area of ​​​​his activity. At some plants, Shukhov's water-tube steam boilers are still working. They first appeared in 1890. They were both better and simpler than the foreign samples that existed at that time.

Their inventor made sure not only that the boilers consumed less coal. He ensured that their internal parts became easily accessible for assembly and repair. And thanks to his ingenious idea to arrange rows of tubes with water in the form of a screen along the entire inner surface of the furnace, the efficiency of the boilers increased significantly.

V. G. Shukhov was a sensitive, sincere and simple person. He lovingly and patiently passed on his experience to his students, tried to develop their initiative and creative thought.

When the company in which V. G. Shukhov worked became the property of the Soviet state, the workers, who highly valued and loved the engineer-scientist, elected him the head of their enterprise, nominated him as a member of the supreme body of Soviet power - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

Vladimir Grigoryevich Shukhov died from an accident at the age of 86, but still full of strength and energy, with an inexhaustible supply of new creative ideas.

Alexander Stepanovich Popov(1859 - 1906) is the generally recognized inventor of the radio. He was born in the Urals, in the provincial village "Turinskie Mines", in the family of a priest.

From childhood, the boy disappeared for hours at the mine. A relative of his father taught him carpentry and carpentry, and Sasha began to craft. Father dreamed of giving Sasha a good education. But teaching at the gymnasium was expensive, and the priest Popov had six children. I had to send the boy to a religious school, and then to a seminary. There the children of the clergy were taught free of charge.

After graduating from the seminary, eighteen-year-old Alexander arrived in St. Petersburg and brilliantly passed the entrance exams to the university for the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. In order to somehow live, the young man had to give lessons, collaborate in magazines, work as an electrician at one of the first St. Petersburg power plants.

Both fellow students and professors considered Popov the most knowledgeable student. After completing the course of sciences, he was left at the university to prepare for a professorship.

But Popov accepted another offer. He was invited to teach in the Mine officer class in Kronstadt. Mine officers were trained there, who at that time were in charge of all electrical equipment on ships.

In Kronstadt, Popov devoted all his free time to physical experiments. He himself made new physical devices.

In 1888, in a scientific journal, Alexander Stepanovich read an article by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz "On the rays of electric force" (now such rays are called radio waves).

In the article, Hertz wrote that he managed to create a special device - a vibrator that emits these waves, and another device - a resonator, with which they can be detected, Hertz first received radio waves. But he did not even think about the practical application of his discovery. After all, the connection between the vibrator and the resonator operated only at a very close distance.

Two years after Hertz's death, on March 12 (24), 1896, AS Popov spoke at the Russian Physico-Chemical Society. He demonstrated his new invention, the wireless telegraph.

The equipment with which Popov managed to establish radio communication for the first time was very little like modern equipment. The radio receiver consisted of a glass tube with metal filings - the so-called coherer, an electric bell and a sensitive electromagnetic relay. The only parts that have survived in radios to this day were the antenna and ground. Their invention is one of Popov's greatest merits.

When electromagnetic waves hit the antenna, the metal filings in the coherer stuck together and their resistance sharply decreased. From this, the current flowing from the batteries through the relay winding increased. The relay worked and turned on the bell. The hammer of the bell struck the cup, and it turned out to be a well-audible signal. Rebounding, the hammer hit the coherer tube and shook the sawdust. If the waves continued to enter the antenna, then the sawdust stuck together again, and everything was repeated from the beginning. When the radio waves disappeared, the sawdust stopped sticking together, and the bell stopped.

Popov demonstrated such a receiver at a meeting of the same Russian Physical and Chemical Society on May 7, 1895. This date is considered the birthday of radio. But then there was no transmitter yet. The receiver from time to time was taken to call itself. This ringing was caused by atmospheric interference - the only signals that could then be "received".

Popov's receiver detected a thunderstorm at a distance of up to 30 km. Therefore, the inventor modestly called his device "lightning detector".

Only in 1896, having created a transmitter, Popov was able to carry out radio communication over a considerable distance.

Navy sailors became interested in Popov's experiments. After all, ships going to sea cannot communicate with the shore and with each other by wire. Therefore, for the fleet, a wireless telegraph is especially necessary. But the naval minister of the tsarist government, on a request for a vacation of one thousand rubles, wrote: "I do not allow money to be released for such a chimera." Meanwhile, the transmission of signals without wires was carried out by another person - a young Italian Guglielmo Marconi(1874 - 1937). Whether he knew about Popov's experiments is unknown, but his receiver did not differ from Popov's lightning detector described in scientific journals a year earlier. In 1897, he received a patent for a radio receiver, fundamentally identical to Popov's apparatus created in 1895.

Marconi was an enterprising businessman. He was interested in his invention by large capitalists and soon had millions to carry out his experiments. Only then did the tsarist officials stir. Popov's experiments were allotted ... nine hundred rubles! Popov and his assistants set to work sparing no effort. They quickly made further progress. In 1898, radio communication was carried out between two ships at a distance of 8 km, a year later - more than 40 km.

But there was no help from the tsarist government. Soon orders for radio equipment for the Russian navy were transferred to the German company Telefunken. The training of radio operators was not organized. And as a result, when the naval battles began Russo-Japanese War, it turned out that radio communication on Japanese ships works better than on Russian ships - the birthplace of radio. The weakness of communication was one of the reasons for the defeat of the tsarist fleet.

Popov was very upset by the defeat of the Pacific Fleet. Many of his friends and students perished on the ships. Soon, new experiences were added to these experiences. At the height of the 1905 revolution, Popov became the director of the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute. In an attempt to protect the revolutionary students from police persecution, he incurred the wrath of the Minister of Education. On January 13, 1906, after a difficult explanation with the tsarist minister, Alexander Stepanovich Popov died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

In the industrial civilization that established itself in Europe in the 19th century, scientific and technological progress began to be considered the main value. And this is no coincidence. As P. Sorokin noted, “only one XIX century. brought more discoveries and inventions than all previous centuries combined.

The 19th century was the epitome of unprecedented technological progress, scientific and technical discoveries were made that led to a change in the way of life of people: its beginning was marked by harnessing the power of steam, the creation of steam engines and engines, which made it possible to carry out an industrial revolution, to move from manufactory production to industrial, factory production.

Scientific discoveries in the field of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, medicine followed one after another. Following the discovery by Michael Faraday of the phenomenon of the electromagnetic arc, James Maxwell undertook the study of electromagnetic fields, developing the electromagnetic theory of light. Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, studying the phenomenon of radioactivity, called into question the previous understanding of the law of conservation of energy.

Physical science has gone from John Dalton's atomic theory of matter to the discovery of the complex structure of the atom. After the discovery of J.J. Thompson in 1897 of the first elementary particle of the electron was followed by the planetary theories of the structure of the atom by Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr. Interdisciplinary research is developing - physical chemistry, biochemistry, chemical pharmacology. A true revolution in science was made by the works of the great naturalist Charles Darwin "The Origin of Species" and "The Origin of Man", which interpreted the emergence of the world and man differently than Christian teaching.

Advances in biology and chemistry gave a powerful impetus to the development of medicine. The French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur developed a method of vaccination against rabies and other contagious diseases. The German microbiologist Robert Koch and his students discovered the causative agents of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria and other diseases, and created drugs against them. New medicines and tools have appeared in the arsenal of doctors. Doctors began to use aspirin and pyramidon, the stethoscope was invented, X-rays were discovered. If the XVII-XVIII centuries. were the era of windmills, then from the end of the XVIII century. the age of steam begins. In 1784, J. Watt invented the steam engine. And already in 1803. The first steam-powered car appears.

James Clark Maxwell. A great achievement of science in the 19th century. was put forward by the English scientist D. Maxwell electromagnetic theory of light(1865), which summarized the research and theoretical conclusions of many physicists from different countries in the fields of electromagnetism, thermodynamics and optics.

Maxwell is well known for having formulated four equations which were an expression of the basic laws of electricity and magnetism. These two areas had been extensively researched prior to Maxwell over the years, and it was well known that they were interrelated. However, although various laws of electricity had already been discovered and they were true for specific conditions, no general and uniform theory existed before Maxwell.

Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882). The 19th century was a time of celebration evolutionary theory. Charles Darwin was one of the first to realize and clearly demonstrate that all types of living organisms evolve over time from common ancestors. Darwin called natural selection and indefinite variability the main driving force of evolution.

Pierre-Simon Laplace. Laplace is one of the founders probability theory; developed and systematized the results obtained by other mathematicians, simplified the methods of proof.

Most of Laplace's research relates to celestial mechanics. He tried everything visible movements celestial bodies to explain, based on Newton's law of universal gravitation. He determined the amount of compression of the Earth at the poles. In 1780 Laplace proposed a new method for calculating the orbits of celestial bodies. He came to the conclusion that the ring of Saturn cannot be continuous, otherwise it would be unstable. Predicted the compression of Saturn at the poles; established the laws of motion of Jupiter's satellites.

John Dalton. The first scientist who achieved significant success in a new direction in the development of chemistry was the English chemist John Dalton, who entered the history of chemistry as the discoverer of the law of multiple ratios and the creator of fundamentals of atomic theory. J. Dalton showed that each element of nature is a collection of atoms that are strictly identical to each other and have a single atomic weight. Thanks to this theory, the ideas of systemic development of processes penetrated into chemistry.

He received all his theoretical conclusions on the basis of his own discovery that two elements can be combined with each other in different proportions, but at the same time each new combination elements is a new connection. He believed that all the atoms of each individual element are the same and are characterized by the fact that they have a certain weight, which he called atomic weight. Reasoning in this way, Dalton compiled the first table of the relative atomic weights of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur and phosphorus, taking as a unit atomic mass hydrogen. This table was Dalton's most important work.

Computers. Although it is believed that the first computer appeared in the 20th century, the first prototypes of modern machine tools with numerical control were built already in the 19th century.

Mechanical engineering and industry. Cars of the Russian-Baltic Plant - a scientific discovery of the 19th century. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, a gradual revolution in mechanical engineering began. Oliver Evans was one of the first who in 1804 in Philadelphia (USA) demonstrated a car with a steam engine.

At the end of the 18th century, the first lathes appeared. They were developed by the English mechanic Henry Maudsley. Railroads began to develop. In 1825, George Stephenson built the first railway in England.

On July 23, 1875, Isaac Merritt Singer passed away, thanks to whom the sewing machine can now be found in many homes. We have compiled a list of eight inventions of the 19th century that proved to be useful in everyday life in the 21st century.

At one time, when Singer worked in a printing house, he was on fire with the idea of ​​​​improving the typesetting machine. To implement his idea, Isaac Singer rented an entire workshop, but he did not succeed in selling the assembled model: an explosion occurred in the room, which destroyed everything. Singer stumbled upon the sewing machine entrepreneur while looking for a new space for his workshop. The machines often broke down, which prompted Singer to new work to improve the existing mechanism. After spending 11 days and $40, Isaac Singer created a sewing machine suitable for promotion to the masses. Constantly improving machines, Singer did not forget about the commercial side of the issue. In 1854, together with his lawyer, he founded I.M. Singer & Co, headquartered in New York.

SmartNews has compiled a list of 8 inventions of the 19th century that are still useful in everyday life.

Fountain pen

The fountain pen first appeared in Spain around 600 AD. However, the invention was patented only in the XIX century. It is difficult to say who exactly was the first inventor. It is known that steel feathers were traded as early as 1780. But the fountain pen, as the current generation is accustomed to seeing it, came about thanks to a patent by Lewis Edson Waterman in 1883. The shape of such a pen resembled a cigar, and the ink from it did not spread, which led the Waterman company to wealth and popularity.

Car with an internal combustion engine

The palm in the creation of the first gasoline-powered car was shared by several inventors at once. In 1855, Karl Benz built a car with an internal combustion engine, and in 1886 he patented his invention and began to produce cars for sale. In 1889, the inventors Daimler and Maybach assembled their own version of the car. They are credited with the creation of the first motorcycle. But one can argue with this: in 1882, Enrico Bernardi received a patent for a single-cylinder gasoline engine and installed it on his son's tricycle. This moment is considered by many as the birth of the first motorcycle.

Phonograph

The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison. The sound was recorded on a carrier in the form of a track, which was placed in a cylindrical spiral on a replaceable rotating drum. When the phonograph was working, the needle of the apparatus moved along the groove, transmitting vibrations to an elastic membrane that emitted sound. The depth of the track was proportional to the volume of the sound. The invention was very popular and constantly modified. Small portable models appeared, and wax-coated rollers were used for recording.

Telephone communications

American Alexander Graham Bell filed an application for the telephone he invented with the US Patent Office on February 14, 1876. Two hours after Bell's arrival, an American named Gray came to the Bureau for the same patent, but the matter remained with Bell. It is worth noting that in the invention of the telephone he was helped by pure chance. Initially, he tried to create a multiplex telegraph, which could transmit several telegrams simultaneously on one wire.

Photo

The first photograph is considered to be "View from the Window" - a photograph taken by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. The photo was placed on a tin plate covered with a thin layer of asphalt. Later, in 1839, Louis-Jacques Mande Daguerre proposed to the world his own way of obtaining an image. In the Daguerre scheme, the copper plate on which the image was to appear was treated with iodine vapor, which resulted in the plate being coated with an ultrasensitive layer of silver iodide. With a daguerreotype, a photograph after a half-hour exposure had to be kept in a dark room over heated mercury vapor, and table salt was used to fix the image.

Electric lamp

Electricity, as a source of energy for lighting something, began to be used only towards the end of the 19th century. Before this point, people used candles and gas lanterns. The invention of the electric light bulb, despite the fact that many scientists and inventors worked in this direction, is usually attributed to Thomas Edison. It was Edison who equipped the lamps with a base and cartridge, and in addition, thought out the switch device.

Established in Europe in the 19th century, scientific and technological progress began to be considered the main value. And this is no coincidence. As P. Sorokin noted, “only one XIX century. brought more discoveries and inventions than all previous centuries combined.

The 19th century was the embodiment of unprecedented technological progress, scientific and technical discoveries were made that led to a change in the way of life of people: its beginning was marked by the development of steam power, the creation of steam engines and engines, which made it possible to carry out an industrial revolution, to move from manufactory production to industrial, factory . The countries of Europe and North America are covered with a network railways which in turn contributed to the development of industry and trade. The production of the first synthetic materials, artificial fibers, began.

Scientific discoveries in the field of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, medicine followed one after another. Following the discovery by Michael Faraday of the phenomenon of the electromagnetic arc, James Maxwell undertook the study of electromagnetic fields, developing the electromagnetic theory of light. Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, studying the phenomenon of radioactivity, called into question the previous understanding of the law of conservation of energy.

Physical science has gone from John Dalton's atomic theory of matter to the discovery of the complex structure of the atom. After the discovery by J. J. Thompson in 1897 of the first elementary particle of the electron, the planetary theories of the structure of the atom by Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr followed. Interdisciplinary research is developing - physical chemistry, biochemistry, chemical pharmacology.

If the periodic law of chemical elements formulated in 1869 by Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev established a relationship between their atomic weights, then the discovery internal structure atom revealed a relationship between the element's ordinal number in periodic system and the number of electrons in the layers of the shell of the atom.

Theories emerge in biology cellular structure of all organisms by T. Schwan, the genetic inheritance of Gregor Johann Mendel, based on which August Weismann and Thomas Morgan created the foundations of genetics. Based on research in the field of physiology of higher nervous activity, IP Pavlov developed the theory of conditioned reflexes.

A true revolution in science was made by the works of the great naturalist Charles Darwin "The Origin of Species" and "The Origin of Man", which interpreted the emergence of the world and man differently than Christian teaching.

Advances in biology and chemistry gave a powerful impetus to the development of medicine. The French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur developed a method of preventive vaccination against rabies and other contagious diseases, a mechanism for sterilization and pasteurization of various products, and laid the foundations for the doctrine of immunity. The German microbiologist Robert Koch and his students discovered the causative agents of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria and other diseases, and created drugs against them. New medicines and tools have appeared in the arsenal of doctors. Doctors began to use aspirin and pyramidon, the stethoscope was invented, X-rays were discovered.

The 19th century is the "machine age" - and this is absolutely correct, because it was then that the production of machines with the help of the machines themselves began. From the mechanical spinning wheel "Jenny" humanity stepped to the first modern loom made of metal, and from it - to the automatic Jacquard loom.

19th century called the "age of steel", - it is then that the level of steel production becomes an indicator of the country's economic power. Iron and steel are replacing wood.

If the XVII-XVIII centuries. were the era of windmills, then from the end of the XVIII century. the age of steam begins. In 1784, J. Watt invented the steam engine. And already in 1803. The first steam-powered car appears. On August 17, 1807, Fulton's Clermont steamer made a test trip, and in 1814, J. Stephenson's steam locomotive was born.

The revolution in means of transport was complemented by the development of maritime communications. Thanks to steam, navigation ceased to depend on the strength of the wind, and oceanic space was overcome in shorter and shorter periods. AT late XIX in. the car of G. Daimler and K. Benz appears, having a highly economical engine running on liquid fuel, and in 1903 - the first aircraft of the brothers U and O. Wright. In parallel, the construction and improvement of roads, bridges, tunnels, canals was going on (Suez Canal, 1859-1869)

The 19th century is the age of electricity. After the discovery by V. V. Petrov of the phenomenon of an electric arc, S. Morse invented the electric telegraph, and A. Bell - the telephone, and T. Edison - the phonograph. The radio receivers of A. S. Popov and G. Marconi appeared, the cinema of the Lumiere brothers. An important innovation was the electric lighting of cities, the horse-drawn tram gave way. In 1863, the first underground railway "Metropolitan" appeared, and by the end of the century, the metro was already functioning in London, Paris, New York, Budapest, Paris and other cities. Human life has changed radically. Thanks to discoveries and inventions, technical dominance over space, time and matter has grown undivided. An unprecedented spatio-temporal growth of civilization began - new territories and new layers of the past entered the spiritual world of man.

Knowledge has expanded its boundaries deep and wide. At the same time, new ways of overcoming time and space arose - new technology with its speeds, means of communication contributed to the fact that a person was able to accommodate a larger segment of space, any point on the planet. The universe, as it were, simultaneously narrowed and expanded, everyone came into contact with everyone. The world has changed qualitatively.