Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin (1847-1923)
To the pride of the Russian people, the fact that the initiative to use electric; lighting both with a voltaic arc and with incandescent lamps belongs to the Russian inventors Yablochkov and Lodygin; therefore, the smallest details of the entire epic of the birth of electric lighting should be dear, interesting and gratifying to every Russian heart, and our duty to those who laid the foundation for the now so widespread electric lighting, to show their work and find out their right to this great discovery. " Post and Telegraph Magazine "in 1900 (No. 2) during the lifetime of the famous inventor Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin.
The name of Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin is mainly associated with the construction of an electric incandescent lamp. As you know, the priority of the invention of the incandescent lamp was disputed by many people, and many so-called "patent processes" have arisen over it. The principle of an electric incandescent lamp was known before A.N. Lodygin. But A.N. Lodygin was the one who aroused tremendous interest in the construction of light sources operating on the principle of incandescence of a conductor with a current. Having built a more perfect lamp than other inventors, A.N. Lodygin for the first time turned it from a physical device into a practical means of illumination, brought it out of the physical office and laboratory to the street and showed the wide possibilities of its application for illumination purposes.
A.N. Lodygin showed the advantages of using a metal, in particular tungsten, wire for the manufacture of an incandescent body and, thus, laid the foundation for the production of modern, much more economical incandescent lamps than carbon lamps of the early period.
A.N. Lodygin paved the way for the success of P.N. Yablochkov and undoubtedly had a strong influence on T.A. appliance into a consumer product.
Having devoted many years of work to the construction and improvement of an incandescent lamp with a coal and a metal filament, A. N. Lodygin did not find favorable soil in contemporary Russia for these works to be applied in practice on a scale corresponding to their significance. Fate forced him to seek his fortune in America, where the second half of his life passed. Living far from his homeland, A. N. Lodygin continued to hope that he would be able to return home to work. He lived to see the Great October Socialist Revolution, but old age deprived him of the opportunity to return to his native country in those years when she began a movement unknown to her until that time along the path of cultural and technical progress. The Soviet technical community did not sever ties with their outstanding comrade-in-arms. He was elected an honorary member of the Society of Russian Electrical Engineers, and in 1923 the Russian Technical Society solemnly celebrated 50 years since the first experiments of A. N. Lodygin on lighting with incandescent lamps.
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin was born on October 18, 1847 on the estate of his parents in the Tambov province. According to family tradition, a military career was being prepared for him. For secondary education, he was sent to the Voronezh Cadet Corps, where he studied until 1865. After graduating from the cadet corps, A.N. Lodygin took a course at the Moscow cadet school and was promoted to second lieutenant, after which he began his service as an army officer ... The presence of undoubted engineering abilities distracted A. N. Lodygin from his military career. After serving the mandatory term, he retired and never returned to the army. Having started, after retiring, work at factories, A. N. Lodygin was engaged in some technical issues, in particular, the construction of aircraft. In 1870 he developed the design of an aircraft heavier than air, and he offered it to the National Defense Committee in Paris for use in the conditions of the Franco-Prussian war that was taking place at that time. His proposal was accepted: he was summoned to Paris to build and test his apparatus. A.N. Lodygin had already started preparatory work at the factories of Creusot, shortly before the faction was defeated in this war. In this regard, his proposal soon lost its relevance, they refused to implement it, and A. N. Lodygin returned to Russia after an unsuccessful stay abroad. In Russia, A. N. Lodygin found himself in a difficult financial situation and was forced to take the first job he came across at the Sirius Oil Gas Society. He began working there as a technician, while devoting his free time to the development of incandescent lamps. Before his trip to Paris, A. N. Lodygin, apparently, did not deal with this issue. He became interested in this technical problem in connection with work on the construction of an aircraft, for the illumination of which such a light source was more suitable than any other.
Having started work on electric lighting with incandescent lamps, A.N. Lodygin, undoubtedly, felt the insufficiency of his knowledge in the field of electrical engineering. After returning from Paris, he began to listen to lectures at St. Petersburg University, trying to become better acquainted with the latest trends in scientific thought in the field of applied physics, especially in the field of the theory of electricity.
By the end of 1872, A. N. Lodygin had several incandescent lamps at his disposal, which could be publicly demonstrated. He managed to find excellent mechanics in the person of the Didrikhson brothers, of whom one - Vasily Fedorovich Didrikhson - personally made all the designs of incandescent lamps developed by A.N. Lodygin, while making significant technological improvements already during the manufacture of lamps.
A.N. Lodygin in his first experiments heated an iron wire with a current, then a large number of small rods of coke, clamped in metal holders. Experiments with iron wire were left to him as unsuccessful, and the incandescence of coal rods showed that this method can not only obtain more or less significant light, but also simultaneously solve another very important technical problem, which at that time was called "light crushing", i.e. e. the inclusion of a large number of light sources in the circuit of one electric current generator. The sequential connection of the rods was very simple and convenient. But glowing coal in the open air led to a rapid burnout of the glowing body. A. N. Lodygin built in 1872 an incandescent lamp in a glass cylinder with a carbon rod. Its first lamps had one carbon rod in a cylinder, and the air was not removed from the cylinder: oxygen burned out when the coal was first heated, and further glowing took place in an atmosphere of residual rarefied gases.
The first incandescent lamp of A.N. Lodygin had the following device: two conductors 2 and 3, bent at right angles, were passed through the holes drilled in a round copper washer 1, of which the left one was directly soldered to the washer, and a glass tube 4 was put on the right one. 4. The outer surface of this tube was matted, and a solution of silver salt was applied to it, from which an even coating of metallic silver was released by repeated heating on the flame. On this silver layer, a layer of red copper of the desired thickness was electroplated. The tube prepared in this way was put on the conductor. With its ends, it was soldered by means of tin to the conductor, and with its middle part to the copper washer 1, and to isolate the tube from the washer, copper deposited on the tube, together with silver, was left only in the form of a narrow ring in the middle and two narrow rings at the ends 5-5, and on the rest of the surface it was scraped off. The glowing body was ember 6, the ends of which were covered with a layer of copper and embedded in the holders. Glass balloon 7 had a neck 8, which was coated with a layer of silver and copper, like tube 4-4, and was soldered to washer 1. The coal had a burning time of about 30 minutes, mainly because the sealing of the balloon and electrodes was insufficient, and when heated, due to the difference in the coefficients of expansion of glass and metal, air penetrated inside the flask and accelerated the combustion of coal.
The lamp of this design was unsuitable for practical use. In 1873, a lamp was built that was more improved in terms of duration of service. It contained two coal rods, of which one burned for 30 minutes and burned out oxygen, after which the second rod burned for 2-2 1/2 hours. The sealing of the bushings in this lamp was more perfect. It consisted of a cylindrical cylinder 1-1 closed on top, which is inserted into a glass glass 2-2 and a hollow cylinder 3-3 is placed in it, the purpose of which is to displace as much air from the cylinder as possible and thereby reduce the combustion of carbon rods. Oil is poured into a glass for sealing. A post 4 is fixed on a copper cylinder, to which two carbon rods are suspended with the help of platinum hooks 5-5. From the rods 6-6, the conductors 7 depart at the bottom, threaded through two glass tubes inserted into the cylinder 3-3. A switch is arranged at the lamp, which allows the second coal to be turned on after the first burns out. This lamp was demonstrated by Lodygin in 1873 and 1874. At the Technological Institute and other institutions, A.N. Lodygin gave many lectures on lighting with incandescent lamps. These lectures attracted a large audience. But the installation of electric lighting with incandescent lamps, arranged by A. N. Lodygin in the fall of 1873 on Odessa Street, was of historical importance. In Petersburg. This is how the engineer N. V. Popov, who personally attended these demonstrations, describes this device ("Electricity" magazine, 1923, p. 544): "On two street lamps, kerosene lamps were replaced by incandescent lamps that poured out a bright white light. The mass of people admired with this illumination, this fire from the sky. Many brought newspapers with them and compared the distances at which they could read under kerosene and electric lighting. On the panel between the lanterns were finger-thick rubber insulated wires. What was this incandescent lamp ? These were pieces of retort coal, about 2 millimeters in diameter, sandwiched between two vertical coals of the same material, 6 millimeters in diameter.The lamps were inserted in series and powered either by batteries or by magneto-electric machines of the Van Maldern system, the Alliance company, alternating current ".
These experiments were promising and were the first public use of an incandescent lamp. The incandescent light bulb took its first step in technology. The success of the work of A.N. Lodygin was unconditional, and after that it was necessary to undertake a serious redesign of the design and the elimination of those weak points that it had. As a designer, A.N. Lodygin faced complex technical issues: finding the best material for making the lamp filament, eliminating the combustion of the incandescent body, that is, completely removing oxygen from the cylinder, the problem of sealing the entry point in order to make it impossible for air to enter the cylinder from the outside ... These questions required a lot of persistent and collective work. Technicians have not stopped working on them even now.
In 1875, a more advanced design of incandescent lamps was built in terms of sealing methods and with balloon evacuation. This lamp design is as follows. A glass cover is hermetically inserted into the metal base of the lamp. The current through the clamp is supplied to one of the coals 1 and through the hinge 2-2 returns along the second metal rod 5 to the lamp body. When coal 1 burns out, the hinge 2-2 drops automatically and closes the circuit through coal 4. By means of the valve shown in the figure on the right, it was possible to remove air from the cylinder with a pump.
Demonstration of lighting using Lodygin lamps at the Admiralty Docks in 1874 showed that the naval department could greatly benefit from the use of incandescent lighting in the fleet. After that, among scientific and industrial circles, interest in the works of A.N. Lodygin increased greatly. The Academy of Sciences awarded him the Lomonosov Prize, highlighting the scientific value of his works. The brilliant successes of A.N. Lodygin led to the fact that entrepreneurs began to group around him, who cared not so much about improving the lamp as about possible profits. This ruined the whole thing. This is how V. N. Chikolev characterized ("Electricity", 1880, p. 75), who always treated the works of A. N. Lodygin with attention and benevolence, the situation created after everyone recognized the success of his work and experiments on lamps incandescence: "Lodygin's invention aroused great hopes and enthusiasm in 1872-1873.
The company, which was formed to exploit this completely unexplored and unprepared method, instead of energetic work on its improvement, which the inventor had hoped for, preferred to engage in speculation and trade in shares in the expectation of the future huge profits of the enterprise. It is clear that this was the most reliable, perfect way to ruin the business - a way that was not slow to be crowned with complete success. In 1874-1875. there was no more talk about lighting Lodygin. "A. N. Lodygin, having become part of such a hastily organized enterprise, lost essentially independence. This is evident at least from the fact that all subsequent constructive versions of his incandescent lamp did not even bore the name of Lodygin, but Kozlov and Koni's lamps were sometimes called Kozlov's lamps, then Konnes's lamps. The lamps had 4-5 separate rods, in which each coal was automatically turned on after the previous coal was burned out, and this lamp was also called the "Conn lamp".
Lodygin's invention in 1877 was used by Edison, who knew about his experiments and got acquainted with the samples of his incandescent lamps brought to America by naval officer A.M. Khotinsky, sent by the Naval Ministry to accept cruisers, and began to work on improving incandescent lamps.
From the side of official institutions, A.N. Lodygin also failed to meet with a benevolent attitude. Having submitted, for example, on October 14, 1872, an application to the Department of Trade and Manufactures for the "Method and Apparatus for Cheap Electric Lighting", A. H. Lodygin received the privilege only on July 23, 1874, that is, his application traveled through the offices for almost two years.
The liquidation of the affairs of the "Partnership" put A. N. Lodygin in a very difficult financial and moral situation. He lost faith in the possibility of a successful continuation of work on the lamp in Russia, but he hoped that in America he would find better opportunities. He files a patent application for a carbon incandescent lamp in America; however, he could not pay the established patent fees and did not receive a US patent. In the middle of 1875 A. N. Lodygin began working as a tool-maker in the St. Petersburg arsenal, in 1876-1878. he worked at the metallurgical plant of the Prince of Oldenburg in St. Petersburg. Here he had to face completely new questions related to metallurgy; under their influence and as a result of acquaintance with electrical engineering, acquired during the work on electric lighting, he developed an interest in the issues of electric smelting, and he began to work on the construction of an electric furnace. In 1878-1879. P. N. Yablochkov was in St. Petersburg, and A. N. Lodygin began working in his workshops organized for the production of electric candles. Working there until 1884, he again made an attempt to produce incandescent lamps, but it was limited to only small-scale experimental work.
In 1884 A. N. Lodygin finally decided to go abroad. For several years he worked in Paris, and in 1888 he came to America. Here he worked first in the field of incandescent lamps to find a better material than coal for the incandescent body. Undoubtedly, outstanding and fundamental in this direction were those of his works that were associated with the manufacture of a heating body from refractory metals. In America, he was granted patents No. 575002 and 575668 in 1893 and 1894. for incandescent lamp body made of platinum filaments coated with rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium, chromium, tungsten and molybdenum. These patents played a significant role in the development of work on the construction of incandescent lamps with a metal filament; in 1906 they were acquired by the General Electric concern. A.N. Lodygin is credited with pointing out the particular importance of tungsten for the construction of incandescent lamps. This opinion did not immediately lead to the corresponding results, but 20 years later, the electric lamp industry around the world completely switched to the production of tungsten incandescent lamps. Tungsten still remains the only metal for the production of filaments for incandescent lamps.
In 1894, A. N. Lodygin went from America to Paris, where he organized an electric lamp plant and at the same time took part in the affairs of the Columbia automobile plant, but in 1900 he returned to America again, taking part in the construction of the New York subway. works in a large battery factory in Buffalo and in cable factories. His interests are increasingly focused on the use of electricity in metallurgy and on various issues of industrial electrothermics. For the period 1900-1905. under his leadership, several factories were built and put into operation for the production of ferrochrome, ferro-tungsten, ferrosilicon, etc.
The outcome of the Russo-Japanese War greatly upset A. N. Lodygin. And although at that time his financial position in America was strong, as a specialist he enjoyed great prestige, his creative powers were in full bloom - he wished to return to Russia in order to apply his extensive and versatile knowledge of an engineer at home. He returned to Russia at the end of 1905. But here he found the same reactionary government course and the same technical backwardness. The post-war economic depression began to take its toll. The methods of American industry and the news of overseas technology at that time did not interest anyone in Russia. And A. N. Lodygin himself turned out to be superfluous. For A.N. Lodygin, there was only a job as the head of the city tram substations in St. Petersburg. This work could not satisfy him, and he left for America.
In recent years in America, after returning from Russia, A.N. Lodygin was exclusively engaged in the design of electric furnaces. He built the largest electric furnaces for smelting metals, melinite, ores, for the extraction of phosphorus and silicon. He built furnaces for hardening and annealing of metals, for heating bandages and other processes. A large number of improvements and technical innovations were patented by him in America and in other countries. Industrial electrothermia owes much to A.N. Lodygin as a pioneer of this new branch of technology.
On March 16, 1923, at the age of 76, A.N. Lodygin died in the United States. With his death, an outstanding Russian engineer who was the first to use an incandescent lamp for the practice of lighting, an energetic fighter for the development of industrial electrothermics, went to his grave.
The main works of A.N. Lodygin: Notes on arc lamps and incandescent lamps (in French), Paris, 1886; Electric induction ovens, "Electricity", 1908, no. 5.
About A. N. Lodygin: Popov NV, Speech at the general meeting of the Russian Technical Society in Petrograd on November 2, 1923, dedicated to the memory of A. N. Lodygin, "Electricity", 1923, No. 12; Shatelen M. A., From the history of the invention of incandescent lamps (to the tenth anniversary of the death of A. N. Lodygin), "Archive of the history of science and technology", M., 1934, p. 4; Essay on the works of Russians in electrical engineering from 1800 to 1900; SPb., 1900; Goffman M., Inventions and successes of material culture, Odessa, 1918; Ivanov A.P., Electric lamps and their manufacture, L., 1923.
To the 170th anniversary of the birth
Alexandra Nikolaevich Lodygin
October 18, 1847 - March 16, 1923
"There is also an indefatigable desire to be useful
to their Fatherland ...
to light up with cheap electric light
all of Russia -
and palaces of nobles, and peasant huts ... "
Alexander Lodygin
The name of this scientist, who gave the world light, went down in the history of domestic and world invention. Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin is an outstanding Russian electrical engineer, the inventor of the world's first incandescent lamps, the founder of electric heating, the founder of electrothermia. He was born on October 18, 1847 in the family of a landowner, a retired officer of an old and noble noble family, in the village. Stenshino, Lipetsk district, Tambov 
province. The Lodygins' manor house was not a palace. It was a typical rural noble mansion, in which the first floor, intended for the needs of the master and servants, was brick, and the second, where the owners lived, was made of wood. On the eve of the peasant reform of 1861, the Lodygins moved to the provincial city of Tambov, leaving behind a part of the estate. Since that time, the family spent the summer months in Stenshino, where the cadet Alexander Lodygin also came for the holidays, and in the winter they live in Tambov, later in Voronezh. Continuing the traditions of the family, Alexander Nikolayevich received a military education, graduating from the Voronezh cadet corps and the Moscow cadet school. However, Lodygin sees his vocation in a completely different area and, having served the obligatory term, resigns.
Alexander Nikolayevich enters the Tula arms factory as a hammer, then as a simple mechanic and at the same time studies works on electricity, mechanics and metal science, realizing that without this knowledge, the embodiment of his dream of creating an electrolyte can be pushed into the distant future. While still a cadet, he was considering a plan for the design of an aircraft with a horizontal propeller and electric traction, which would be heavier than air, already in 1869 he was able to submit to the Main Engineering Directorate a project of a helicopter with an electric motor. Lodygin's "Electrolet" had nothing to do with the controlled balloons that were being designed at that time.
The designer proceeded from the principles of mechanics, based on the well-known position that "if the work of the Archimedean screw is applied to any mass and the force of the screw is greater than the gravity of the mass, then the mass will move in the direction of the force." Based on this principle, Lodygin's "electrolyte" was a long, well-streamlined cylinder ending in a cone in front and a hemisphere in the back. 
On the side of the hemisphere, a screw was reinforced, which imparted movement to the projectile in a horizontal direction. The second propeller was located on top of the projectile. By setting its blades at different angles, the designer expected to change the speed of the "electrolyte", and by a combination of the work of one and the other propeller to impart vertical and horizontal movement to the apparatus.
The designer received no support from the government to continue his work, and the "electric plane" was not built.
In 1870, Lodygin moved to St. Petersburg and began to attend 
lectures by famous mechanics I.A.Vyshnegradsky and V.L. Kirpichev, chemist D.I. His search for a way to illuminate a flying machine at night led him to the invention of the incandescent lamp.
In his first experiments, Lodygin used iron wire, but it turned out to be unsuitable for the purposes of the inventor, then coke rods were used. Only carbon rods contributed to the production of significant light, and the decision to include a large number of light sources in the circuit of a single electric current generator.
In 1872, Lodygin designs an incandescent lamp in a glass cylinder with a carbon rod. The burning time was about 30 minutes due to the fact that air penetrated into the flask and accelerated the burning of the coal. Already in the next year, 1873, Lodygin created a lamp with two carbon rods: the first burned for 30 minutes and burned out oxygen, after which the second rod could burn for 2-2.5 hours. Simultaneously with the research and development of incandescent lamps, the world's first public experiments with electric lighting took place. In 1873 Russian engineer A. N. Lodygin created the world's first electric incandescent light bulb. In 1874, Lodygin was granted a patent in Russia (privilege No. 1619 dated July 11, 1874) for "Method and Apparatus for Cheap Electric Lighting". "Electric light, obtained from inductive currents, should be the only artificial light used on the globe both for its strength and evenness of light, and for safety and cheapness ..." - Alexander Nikolaevich writes in his writings.
Considering the great importance of the invention, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences awarded the inventor for his work the full Lomonosov Prize in the section "Discoveries in the field of physics".
The incandescent light bulb of A.N. Lodygin practically did not heat the room, and it was convenient and safe to use it at home. But in Russia it was not possible to establish mass production of lamps, and Lodygin left for America, where he was amazed to learn that there his lamp was named after Edison. Later, the American court was forced to annul Edison's patent and confirm the priority of Lodygin. Edison improved A. N. Lodygin's lamp several times without changing the idea. Edison received several patents, but not for the invention of an incandescent lamp, but for the improvement of A.N. Lodygin's lamp.
In 1900, a tungsten incandescent lamp was on display at the Paris Exhibition. Lodygin came to this invention by systematic work instead of expensive and low resistance platinum filaments, which were used repeatedly, he drew attention to such refractory metals as osmium, tantalum, molybdenum, tungsten. The use of these metals made it possible to find the best solution to the problem of an incandescent lamp. Lodygin comes up with the idea of replacing the carbon filament of the lamp filament with a tungsten filament twisted into a spiral. He received patents for inventions No. 575002 and 575668 for an incandescent lamp body made of platinum filaments coated with rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium, chromium, tungsten and molybdenum. These patents played a prominent role in the development of metal filament incandescent lamps. Lodygin incandescent lamps with a refractory (melting point 1310 C) tungsten filament are still used. They are quite economical, give an even bright white light, last thousands of hours and have long been considered practically safe.
In 1871, Lodygin created a project for an autonomous diving suit using a gas mixture consisting of oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen was to be produced from water by electrolysis. The design of this diving apparatus is actually a prototype of the scuba gear. “Having made research on the possibility of staying under water for more or less a long time, I came to the conclusion ... we need an apparatus in which: 1) communication with the water surface would not be required; 2) there would be a constant and sufficient access of oxygen to the diver's lungs; 3) there would be complete freedom in movement in all directions and depths, in order to be in the water like at home, as on the ground ”- wrote the inventor.
Another direction of Lodygin's inventions is induction furnaces for melting refractory metals. It is not without reason that he is called the father of electrothermia. The first electrothermal device was built by him in 1872. This is how Lodygin describes his results: “... an induction furnace is a special type of transformer, in which the metal to be melted is the primary winding, designed for maximum heating. Here is the case when Joule's law is fully applicable ... such a transformer, obviously, can be made single-phase or polyphase, and all modifications in the design and combination of transformers that exist in practice are applicable to it ... "He was one of the pioneers of industrial electrothermics , having created a number of original designs of electric furnaces, he has 11 patents on this topic. His interests focus on the use of electricity in metallurgy and on the problematic issues of industrial electrothermics. From 1900 to 1905 under the leadership of A. N. Lodygin, several plants were built for the production of ferrochrome, ferro-tungsten, ferrosilicon.
A.N. Lodygin was the first to propose the use of electricity for heating and 
developed an electric heating device based on the incandescence of an electric current of coal rods placed in thin metal tubes.
Lodygin's life abroad was complex and multifaceted. He was both an entrepreneur and a simple worker and an engineer, worked at the Clemenc car plant, at the carriage plant, at the battery plant, was a design engineer for the Westinghouse electric lighting company, an electrical engineer for the construction of the New York subway, a senior a cable plant chemist. Having lived for many years abroad, Lodygin always considered himself a patriot of Russia. “I can proudly say that wherever I was, I remained Russian and I’m not afraid to say it”, “… during the entire time of my absence from Russia, I never for a minute, my own country, my Motherland - Russia ... "
At the VI All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress, Lodygin was unanimously elected as an honorary deputy of the congress, but when the bourgeois February Revolution came to power, the life of a Russian inventor who fought for the development of domestic industry became especially painful.
In 1917 he had to leave the service. Left without funds, with a sick wife and two children, the seventy-year-old inventor decides to leave his homeland. Soon, the Young Soviet Government set a course for the liberation of industry from foreign dependence, for the electrification of the entire country. The seriously ill Lodygin could no longer participate in the realization of the dream of his whole life.
The news from Russia that he was elected an honorary member of the Society of Russian Electrical Engineers arrived in the United States with a delay - on March 16, 1923, Alexander Nikolaevich died.
Lodygin is a laureate of the Lomonosov Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of many reputable scientific societies - Russian Technical (RTO) and Russian Physical and Technical, American Chemical and American Electrical, Institute of American Electrical Engineers, French and International Societies of Electrical Engineers; he is a holder of the Order of Stanislav III degree for the invention of the electric lighting system - the rarest award among the inventors of Russia, an honorary member of the Society of Russian Electrical Engineers.
"... The years go by, we are discovering all the new, considered lost, works and inventions of Lodygin, many new pages are open ... Lodygin's contribution to the progress of the most diverse areas of electrical engineering is becoming more obvious, even more noticeable, even more weighty and more expensive from the heights of human knowledge ..." - writes in the preface to the book "Lodygin" by L. Zhukova, the Soviet scientist in the field of automation and control processes, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences AA Vavilov.
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin went down in the history of science as the inventor of the incandescent lamp, but he was also one of the first scientists and inventors in the field of electrothermics and electrical technology.
Books about the life and work of the inventor
|
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin (1847-1923) // People of Russian Science: Essays on Outstanding Figures of Natural Science and Technology. Part II / foreword and entered. Art. acad. S. I. Vavilov; comp. - ed. M.V. Kuznetsov. - Moscow: Leningrad; OGIZ, 1948 .-- S. 995-1002. |
|
|
Gumilevsky L. "Russian light" in Europe: [on the significance of A. N. Lodygin's inventions] // Russian engineers / L. Gumilevsky. - 2nd ed. - Moscow: Young Guard, 1953 .-- S. 171-175. |
|
|
Zhukova L. N. Lodygin / L. N. Zhukova; foreword A.A. Vavilov. - 2nd ed. - Moscow: Young Guard, 1989 .-- 303 p. - (Life of wonderful people. Series of biographies. 632). |
|
|
28.088 (2R-4Li) |
Zolotareva TV Estate in the village of Stenshino: [b. estate of the Lodygins] / TV Zolotareva // Natural and cultural heritage of the Lipetsk region: materials of the region. scientific-practical conf. May 15, 1999 - Lipetsk: LGPI, 2000 .-- S. 61-63. |
On May 20, 1873, Petersburgers had the good fortune to look at the first electric illumination right on the street. Inventor Alexander Lodygin demonstrated his invention - an incandescent lamp, replacing several kerosene burners in the lanterns on Odessa Street with electrical appliances of his own design.
These were the first lamps in the world, similar to those that now burn in our apartments everywhere. They were glass bulbs, each with two electrodes and one incandescent element fixed between them. The lamps burned for two hours. They could be turned on and off.
The site recalls how the demonstration of electric flashlights took place, and understands why the American Edison is considered the inventor of the incandescent lamp, and not Alexander Lodygin.
Flicker-free light
Now you will not surprise anyone, even with laser shows on the walls of the General Staff of St. Petersburg. And on that May evening, a lot of people gathered on Odessa Street to look at eight miraculous lanterns, burning with a bright, flickering light, in which you can read newspapers like during the day. People really brought newspapers with them, moved away from the lanterns and approached them, checking how much light was enough to distinguish the printed letters.Alexander Lodygin, meanwhile, mentally calculated the profits that his invention could bring. In 1874 he received a patent for his incandescent lamp and the Lomonosov Prize from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Then the scientist patented the lamp in Austria-Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Saxony and even in India and Australia, but, unfortunately, not in the USA. Later he founded the company "Russian Association of Electric Lighting Lodygin and Co." in order to continue developing and improving his lamp.
Shard of dreams
The hereditary nobleman Alexander Lodygin, although he did not follow in the footsteps of his ancestors and left military service early, still did not part with the military path. He got a job as a hammer at the Tula Arms Plant and there he began to develop his first invention - an electric jet. A military flying machine equipped with an electric motor. She was supposed to be something between a balloon and a helicopter. The French, who fought with the Prussians, became interested in the invention, but by the time Lodygin reached Paris, the war had come to an end. The inventor was left without money and without a dream come true.
It is not known what prompted him to further improve just one part of the electrolyte - an incandescent lamp, which he planned to use during night flights. Maybe it was a desire to grab a piece of a dream, or maybe just curiosity, the excitement of a natural scientist. And Lodygin began his experiments. Knowing about the experiments of Vasily Petrov, who discovered the electric arc back in 1802, Alexander Nikolaevich went the other way - he began to sort out the elements of incandescence and the environment in which they can be operated. So he reached a carbon rod attached to copper electrodes in a glass flask, from which air was previously evacuated. The lamp was invented.
But unfortunately for Lodygin, another Russian inventor, Pyotr Yablochkov, literally side by side with him, conducted his experiments with an electric arc. And soon Yablochkov's arc lamps eclipsed the light of incandescent lamps, but only because Lodygin lacked funds and did not know how to advertise himself. They just forgot about him.
Bypassed Edison
Incandescent lamp by Thomas Edison. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Lodygin finally got out of the competition in the lamp business in 1879, when the American Edison appeared on the world stage with his incandescent lamp. But Thomas Alva Edison, the same age as Alexander Lodygin, fought over his invention, presumably, for at least six years. The Russian pioneer of electric street lighting filed his patent application in the United States as early as 1873, but could not find the money to pay the required fees. It is logical to assume that it was then that Edison received some information about the breakthrough of his counterpart from the distant Russian Empire.
And Lodygin, having actually lost another dream, continued to work. He lived in St. Petersburg, improved a diving apparatus, worked on other inventions. For participation in the Vienna Electrotechnical Exhibition, Lodygin received the Order of Stanislav III degree.
In 1884 Alexander Nikolaevich moved to France, then to the USA. There he invents new incandescent lamps, electric furnaces, electric cars, builds factories and a subway. In the United States, he won one important, but unnoticed by the world community, victory over businessman Edison. Lodygin in 1906 sold his patents for improved lamps with refractory metal filaments to the General Electric Company. As they say, he beat Thomas Alva on a dry run on his own field.
In 1907, Alexander Nikolayevich returned to Russia, teaches, introduces technologies for melting and welding metals, is engaged in the electrification of the country, during World War I he was working on a prototype of a helicopter. But after the February Revolution of 1917 he emigrated again, tk. finds no common language with the new government.
Streets of burning lanterns
Many have forgotten the merits of Alexander Lodygin. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
In the triumphant year of 1873, Lodygin shed light not only on one of the shortest streets in St. Petersburg, but also illuminated the entire future of Russia.
Who knows, without his experiments, Edison would have had his own light bulb? And at Ilyich's?
What would happen to the GOELRO plan? What would the Streets of Broken Lanterns series be called today? What pictures would shine on the facade of the General Staff on New Year's Eve?
On May 20, not everyone who came to see the heavenly light hidden in the glass understood what kind of invention it was.
But the newspaper notes describing that event did not lie: today St. Petersburg is really flooded with the bright light of electric lights.
First, the haze dissipated over Odessa Street, in 1879 - over the Liteiny Bridge and the Neva ... So gradually the light of Lodygin came to every house of our vast country.
The article was prepared by prof. A.B. Kuvaldin
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin(October 18, 1847, the village of Stenshino, Lipetsk district, Tambov province - March 16, 1923, Brooklyn, New York, USA) - an outstanding Russian electrical engineer who became famous for the invention of the world's first electric incandescent lamps, while his services in development of installations and technologies for industrial electric heating.
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin was born on his father's estate in the Tambov province and came from an old noble family (Fig. 1). By family tradition, he received a military education. In 1859, Lodygin entered the cadet corps, and then studied at the Moscow cadet school. After graduating from college in 1867, he was promoted to second lieutenant, after which his service began as an army officer.
However, a military career did not attract A.N. Lodygin, as he was carried away by physics and technology. After serving an obligatory period, in the fall of 1868 he retired and left for Tula, where he worked at the Tula arms factory, first as a hammer and then as a mechanic. At the beginning of 1870, Lodygin moved to St. Petersburg.
In St. Petersburg, A. N. Lodygin works as a locksmith in the Sirius gas company and is actively engaged in inventive activity - he develops the designs of an aircraft ("electrolyte"), an autonomous diving apparatus, an electric heating system and an electric incandescent lamp. All of these inventions are related to the use of electricity and they were all far ahead of their time.
In September 1870, A.N. Lodygin turned to the Minister of War D.A. Milyutin with a request to pay attention to his invented "electric plane - an aeronautical machine that can move freely at different heights and in different directions and, serving as a means of transporting goods and people, can satisfy at the same time specially military requirements ...". Lodygin's electric plane was equipped with two screws to create thrust in the horizontal and vertical directions (Fig. 2) .. The minister did not show interest in this invention and A.N. Lodygin proposed it to the National Defense Committee in Paris (at that time it was Prussian War). The proposal was accepted and Lody Gin began preparatory work at the Creusot factories. However, France was defeated and at the beginning of 1871 Lodygin returned to St. Petersburg.
Here, as an auditor, he attends lectures on physics, chemistry, mathematics and strength of materials. famous professors of St. Petersburg University and the Technological Institute D. I. Mendeleev (1835 - 1907), I. A. Vyshnegradsky (1831-1895), V. L. Kirpichev (1845-1913) and others.
Lodygin developed the design of an autonomous diving apparatus, in which water was decomposed by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen, a mixture of which the diver had to breathe, and submitted a memorandum to the Naval Ministry (1871). The apparatus was very complex in design. It included: devices for decomposing water into oxygen and hydrogen and for mixing these gases; a device for the release of substances unfit for breathing, galvanic batteries, a propeller and a drive to it for the movement of a diver, etc. At that time, the implementation of the project was impossible.
In 1872 A. N. Lodygin filed an application for "Method and devices for cheap electric heating" (Fig. 3). From the description of the invention: “... the method consists in heating bad conductors in a space isolated from air, which eliminates the cause of their combustion and makes them permanent. .. a conductor in a hermetically sealed space .. heats up the walls of its container, and it, in turn, transfers heat to the surrounding air, which is spread through the room with the help of a fan. " Outstanding electrical engineer, academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences BS Yakobi (1801 - 1874) gave a positive response to the heating system proposed by Lodygin and noted that such an application of electricity has not yet been described by anyone.
This invention of Lodygin for the end of the 19th century turned out to be unclaimed for quite understandable reasons (lack and high cost of electricity, high cost and complexity of equipment, lack of consumers for whom electric heating devices would have significant advantages over fuel stoves). Industrial electrothermal installations began to develop relatively widely only from the beginning of the XX century.
These were electric furnaces for melting metals and other materials. By the way, in this area A.N. Lodygin also did a lot.
In Lodygin's manuscript "Theory of cheap electric lighting and heating" (1872) there is a mention of experiments at an artillery range on Volkovo Pole in 1870 with powerful lamps, the incandescent body of which were iron and platinum wires. The light was amplified and directed to the target by a reflective mirror. The experiments were led by General V.F. Petrushevsky (1829 - 1891). But Lodygin was convinced that the use of iron wire as a filament was not effective and began to use coal rods for this purpose. This method made it possible to obtain positive results and Lodygin began to improve such lamps, in particular, to increase the service life, he suggested placing the incandescent element in a glass cylinder, pumping out air from it, or using filling with a protective gas that does not enter into a chemical reaction with the incandescent element (Fig. .4).
In 1872, A. N. Lodygin applied to the Department of Trade and Manufactures for the invention "Method and Apparatus for Cheap Electric Lighting" and two years later received a patent for his invention (privilege of July 22, 1874). In the description of the invention - an electric incandescent lamp - it is indicated that it uses "a bad conductor, which shines due to its incandescence with a current, placed in a gas with which it does not react, does not burn at all ..." (Fig. 4).
By the end of 1872, A. N. Lodygin had several incandescent lamps at his disposal, which could be publicly demonstrated. He managed to find an excellent mechanic - V.F.Didrikhson, who made all the designs of incandescent lamps developed by Lodygin. In the laboratory of Lodygin, located in a house at the corner of Odessa Street and Konnogvardeisky (now Suvorovsky) Avenue, in 1872-1873 the world's first demonstrations of electric lighting were held, and, according to an eyewitness, “more people came here than to the opera at the Mariinsky” ... (fig. 5).
Interestingly, in the experiments, bright light was lit up in glass cones of all kinds: balls, cylinders, prisms, and even in a ball in a crystal vase of water. The inventor received an order for a series of underwater lights to illuminate diving operations. Lodygin talked about the possibilities of the future application of his invention: for railways and steamships (signal lamps), for mines and mines (explosion-proof), for premises (wall and ceiling)
At the Technological Institute and other institutions, A.P. Lodygin gave many lectures on the illumination of incandescent lamps. These lectures also attracted a large number of listeners. In the fall of 1873, Lodygin installed incandescent lamps on Odessa Street. In Petersburg. An article in the journal Electricity for 1923 described this event as follows:
“On two street lamps, kerosene lamps were replaced by incandescent lamps that gave out a bright white light. The mass of the people admired this illumination, this fire from the sky. Many brought newspapers with them and compared the distances at which they could read under kerosene and electric lighting. "
Later B.S. Jacobi also gave a positive answer to the application for electric lighting, recommending the academician, physicist G.I. Lodygin. At Wild's suggestion, the general meeting of academicians decided to award Lodygin the honorary Lomonosov Prize for 1874 and noted that this discovery is "the path to such a general use of electric light, which, in all likelihood, will lead to a complete revolution in the lighting system."
In 1874, the joint-stock company “Russian Association of Electric Lighting Lodygin and Co.” was created.
The company was engaged in the production of lamps and their sale, as well as obtaining patents (privileges) in many countries of the world, including: Austria-Hungary, Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain and even India and Australia.
However, at that time the lamp was still far from perfect and needed further improvements. A. N. Lodygin, having become part of such a hastily organized enterprise, lost his independence, therefore all subsequent constructive versions of the incandescent lamp did not even bore the name of Lodygin, but were named after the owners of the "Partnership" shares (Kozlov and Kon lamps). Soon the company went bankrupt and Lo-Dygin's work on improving incandescent lamps was stopped for some time. Lodygin found himself in a very difficult financial situation.
In the middle of 1875 A. N. Lodygin began working as a tool-maker in the St. Petersburg arsenal, in 1876-1878. he worked at the metallurgical plant of the Prince of Oldenburg in St. Petersburg. Here he had to face completely new questions related to metallurgy; under their influence and as a result of acquaintance with electrical engineering, acquired during the work on electric lighting, he developed an interest in the issues of electrometallurgy.
In 1878-1879. P. N. Yablochkov was in St. Petersburg, and Lodygin began working in his workshops organized for the production of electric candles.
Working there until 1884, he again attempted the production of incandescent lamps, but these were only small experimental works.
In 1880, the VI (electrotechnical) department of the Russian Technical Society (RTO) was created and the publication of the journal "Electricity" began. A. N. Lodygin, together with Yablochkov and other well-known electrical engineers, actively participated in this work and was elected a full member of the RTO. A few months after the organization of the VI department of the RTO, the first electrical exhibition in Russia and the world was held in St. Petersburg, at which almost all the novelties of the world electrical engineering were presented.
In 1884 A.P. Lodygin finally decided to go abroad and for 23 years he lived in France and the USA. He continued to work on improving incandescent lamps. For several years he worked in Paris, where he organized the production of incandescent lamps and sent a batch of lamps to St. Petersburg for the 3rd electrical exhibition. In 1886, the premises in which the annual meeting of the French Physical Society was held were lit by 145 Lodygin lamps. It is interesting that they were different in light intensity - from 10 to 50 candles, and one lamp even 400 candles.
In 1888, Lodygin came to America and in the same year submitted three applications to the New York Patent Office for improved long-life carbon lamps. The first is made of electrically sintered silk fiber and an outer shell of precipitated carbon, the second is made of plant fibers impregnated with fluorine bromine, the third is with the addition of silicon and boron.
At the 1889 International Exhibition in Paris, A.P. Lodygin's lamps were awarded an honorary diploma and a gold medal.
But in the end, Lodygin comes to the idea of using the lamp filament in the form of a filament of refractory metals, in particular, tungsten filaments, twisted in the form of a spiral. In America in 1893-1894. he was granted patents No. 575002 and 575668 for an incandescent lamp body made of platinum filaments coated with rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium, chromium, tungsten and molybdenum. These patents of A.N. Lodygin played an important role in the development of incandescent lamps. In 1906, they were acquired by the General Electric concern, and after a while the electric lamp industry around the world completely switched to the production of tungsten incandescent lamps, which are still used today.
In the United States, Lodygin enjoyed the support of George Westinghouse (1846 - 1914), with whom he established a good personal relationship. In his article "Technical Education and the Ideals of American Engineers," Lodygin speaks highly of Westinghouse, emphasizing that he is not only a successful organizer, manager and financier, but, above all, an engineer. Lodygin worked at Westinghouse enterprises for several years (from 1888 to 1894).
Relations with T.A. Edison were more complicated. To-mas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931) received his first patent for a carbon filament lamp in the United States in 1879, i.e. 7 years after Lodygin. A talented inventor and entrepreneur, Edison produced huge quantities of lamps in his factories and promoted their widespread distribution. Along with Edison and Westinghouse, the English inventors Joseph Wilson Swann (1828-1914) and Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840-1916), the German Werner von Siemens (1816-1892) and others were engaged in further improvement of incandescent lamps in different countries.
It is interesting to note that at the World Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, organized in memory of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, more than 100 thousand lamps were used by Westinghouse Electric, in which Lodygin worked then.
In 1894 A. N. Lodygin went from America to Paris, where he organized a lamp company "Lodygin and de Lisle". For several years he has lived in France again.
In 1895, an important event took place in Lodygin's life - he married journalist Alma Schmidt, the daughter of a German engineer. They had two daughters, in 1901 - Margarita, and in 1902 - Vera.
In 1898 he worked as the chief chemist and electrical engineer of the Paris branch of the American company of electric vehicles "Columbia", creates electric vehicles of his own design and accumulators for them.
At the World Exhibition in Paris (1900), in a review of the history of the origin of electric light, A.N. Lodygin was given the honorable first place, while four types of lamps invented by him were demonstrated. In the Russian section of the exhibition, among 12 portraits of prominent Russian inventors, the portrait of Lodygin was also placed.
In 1900, Lodygin returned to America again, where he participated in the construction of the subway in New York, worked at a large battery plant in Buffalo and at cable factories.
His interests are increasingly focused on the use of electricity in metallurgy and on various issues of industrial electrothermics. For the period 1900 - 1906. with his participation in the USA, several plants were built and put into operation for the production of ferrochrome, ferro-tungsten, ferrosilicon, etc.
An important direction of Lodygin's inventive activity in America is the development of electric resistance and induction furnaces for melting metals and glass, hardening and annealing steel products. Lodygin has become over the years a major specialist in electrothermics. In 1906, he acquired a plant in Pittsburgh for the production of various iron-based alloys (ferro-tungsten, ferrosilicon, etc.).
By this time, Lodygin had firmly established himself in the United States. However, at the age of 60, he decides to return to Russia.
The Lodygin family moved to Russia in 1907 and settled in St. Petersburg. Lodygin brought with him many new inventions: methods of preparing alloys, electric furnaces, an engine, electric devices for welding and cutting metals. At first, he took up the registration of applications for his inventions.
The Electrotechnical Institute named after Emperor Alexander III was the first to offer Lodygin a job - to teach the course "Design of electrochemical plants." However, this work did not last long - only one semester. Then Lodygin worked in the construction department of the Petersburg railway.
In 1908, in the journal "Electricity" A. N. Lodygin published an article in which the principle of operation and the design of a crucible induction furnace without a magnetic circuit were described for the first time. In 1909, Lodygin applied for and in 1911 received a patent for an induction furnace (Fig. 6).
The electrotechnical community celebrated the 40th anniversary of the electric lamp in 1910, although Lodygin received a patent in 1874 and filed an application in 1872, but the electrical engineers of the Russian Technical Society considered the lamp's birthday the first experiments at the end of 1870 at an artillery range on the initiative of General B F. Petrushevsky.
In 1914, Lodygin was sent by the Department of Agriculture and Land Management to the Olonets and Nizhny Novgorod provinces to develop proposals for electrification.
At the beginning of World War I (1914), Lodygin returned to aviation projects - in particular, he sent an application to the Ministry of War for a "cyclogyr" - an electric vertical take-off aircraft with specific propellers in the form of huge wheels with many blades. But for that time, the project turned out to be unrealizable.
A. N. Lodygin was a versatile person and was quite actively involved in social and political activities. He was fond of the ideas of the populists and in 1875-1878 he participated in the creation and life of one of the first in Russia populist colony-commune in the Caucasus near Tuapse. In 1910-1912. Lodygin, under the influence of nationalists, writes an article and a brochure "Nationalists and Other Parties". Lodygin did not become a politician. More interesting and constructive are his thoughts on the role of the engineer and inventor in the life of society, published in the articles "Technical Education and Ideals of American Engineers" ("Electricity", 1909, No. 2) and "Laboratory for Inventors" ("New Time". 1910. No. 12485).
The outbreak of world war worsened the situation in Russia. After the February Revolution of 1917, material difficulties forced the Lodygin family to leave for the United States.
After returning from Russia, A.N. Lodygin in America was exclusively engaged in the design of electric furnaces. He built the largest electric furnaces for smelting metals, ores, phosphorus and silicon. He created furnaces for hardening and annealing metals, for heating tires and other processes. A large number of improvements and technical innovations were patented by him in America and in other countries.
AN Lodygin was forced to reject an invitation to return to the RSFSR to participate in the development of the GOELRO plan due to illness.
In March 1923 he died in Brooklyn, New York.
The name of Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin is mainly associated with the creation of an electric incandescent lamp. The principle of an electric incandescent lamp was known before Lodygin, but A.N. Lodygin was the first to turn it from a laboratory physical device into a practical means of lighting and showed the wide possibilities of its application.
A. N. Lodygin made a great contribution to the development of electric heating.
Back in 1914, A.N. Lodygin compiled a list of his inventions of 37 positions, including 11 positions - inventions in the field of creating electric furnaces, of which it can be noted: a resistance furnace for melting various metals, an induction furnace for melting and smelting metals, an induction furnace for melting non-conductors (for melting glass and similar materials), a furnace for heating tires for fitting them onto wheels, a furnace for quenching and annealing.
The merits of Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin received recognition during his lifetime.
He received the Lomonosov Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the invention of the lamp, was elected a member of the Russian Technical and Russian Physicochemical Societies, and the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute awarded him the title of honorary electrical engineer. A.N. Lodygin was a member of the American Chemical and American Electrical Societies, the Institute of American Electrical Engineers, the French and International Societies of Electrical Engineers, and actively participated in the International Electrotechnical Exhibitions. For participation in the Vienna Electrotechnical Exhibition (1884) A.N. Lodygin was awarded the Order of Stanislav III degree, which was a rare award for Russian inventors.
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin went down in the history of science as the inventor of the incandescent lamp, but he was also one of the first scientists and inventors in the field of electrothermics and electrical technology.
The memory of A.N. Lodygin is preserved to this day.
In St. Petersburg (Odessa Street, 1), in the building where the workshop of A.N. Lodygin was located, the Museum of Lanterns was created (Fig. 7). There are two memorial plaques on the building.
In 1952, in St. Petersburg, one of the lanes was renamed Lodygin Lane - in honor of the Russian inventor and electrical engineer.
In Tambov, in the house where A.N. Lodygin, a museum was opened (1988). On the facade of the building there is a memorial plaque: "In this house from 1859 to 1865 lived an outstanding Russian scientist - the inventor of the incandescent light bulb Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin."
The name of the famous inventor bears the state enterprise "Scientific Research Institute of Light Sources named after A.N. Lodygin "(Saransk).
Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin (1847-1923) - Russian electrical engineer. Invented and created the carbon incandescent lamp (1872, patent 1874). One of the founders of electrothermia. Lomonosov Prize. (1874).
Education, first job
Alexander Lodygin was born October 18 (October 6, old style), 1847, in the village of Stenshino, Petrovsky district, Tambov province, on his father's estate. In 1867, as befits a noble family, he graduated from the Moscow military school, but soon retired. For some time he worked at the Tula arms factory as a hammer and mechanic, and then moved to St. Petersburg.
Electricity
Lodygin came to the study of electricity and its application after his first work on an aircraft heavier than air - "Lodygin's electrolyte". At the end of 1860, he developed a project for a helicopter driven by an onboard electric motor. Not receiving support in Russia, Lodygin in 1870 proposed his project to France and she accepted it. The implementation of the project was prevented by the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War.
The main invention of Lodygin
Work on the electrical equipment of the aircraft led Lodygin to create an electric incandescent lamp as the most suitable light source. In 1872 he applied, but only in 1874, after two years of Russian bureaucratic red tape, received the privilege of an incandescent lamp. Lodygin also patented his invention in Austria, Great Britain, France and Belgium. He filed a patent application for a carbon incandescent lamp to America, but, unable to pay the required patent fee, he could not obtain a US patent.
Lodygin lamp
In the lamp of Alexander Lodygin, a current incandescent a thin rod of retort coal, located under a glass cover. The service life of the first lamps was only 30-40 minutes. Subsequently, the inventor used several rods in the lamp, which were turned on one after the other as it burned, and then - pumping out air and heating in a vacuum. All improvements of this kind made it possible to bring the service life of the incandescent lamp to 700-1000 hours of operation without burning out.
Incandescent lamp success
In 1873, A. Lodygin repeatedly publicly demonstrated how to use the lamps he invented for practical purposes - ship and industrial lighting, street lighting, etc. The principle of an electric incandescent lamp was known before him, but Alexander Nikolaevich, having given a more perfect lamp design, turned it from a physical device into a practical lighting tool. For the invention of the lamp, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences awarded him the Lomonosov Prize in 1874.
Implementation of the invention
The attempts made by Alexander Lodygin to commercialize the incandescent lamp invented by him ended in failure due to lack of funds. The American inventor Thomas Edison became interested in samples of Lodygin lamps brought to the United States by an officer who received cruisers built there by order of the Russian naval department. Improving various designs of electric incandescent lamps, Edison in 1879 created a lamp with a carbon filament.
Further activities
In the 1890s, Lodygin invented several types of lamps with metal filaments. He has priority in the use of tungsten for the manufacture of a filament. Lodygin's molybdenum and tungsten lamps were demonstrated at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Lodygin also designed electric heating devices, respirators with an electric oxygen source for breathing, electric furnaces for melting metals and ores, as well as for heat treatment. Lodygin was one of the founders of the electrical engineering department of the Russian Technical Society and the magazine "Electricity".
Lodygin's move abroad
Lacking the material resources and not finding opportunities to continue work in Russia, A. N. Lodygin in 1884 decided to finally go abroad. After working for several years in Paris, he moved to the United States in 1888. His interests increasingly focused on the use of electricity in metallurgy. Lodygin's financial position was strengthened, he began to enjoy great prestige as a specialist. Nevertheless, at the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he returned to Russia to apply his vast engineering knowledge at home. Here he encountered the old conservatism and the old technical backwardness. For him there was only a job as a substation manager for a city tram in St. Petersburg. In addition to issues of tram operation, during this period he was also interested in the problems of electrification of handicraft industries. Feeling superfluous, Lodygin returned to the United States in 1916, where he was exclusively engaged in the design of electric furnaces.
Loading ...