Alexander Stepanovich Popov

Alexander Stepanovich Popov (Russian: Александр Степанович Попов) (March 4/16 1859 - January 13/December 31 1905/6) was a Russian physicist who was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic waves (but did not apply for a patent for this invention).

Birth

Born in the village Turinskiye Rudniki (now Krasnoturinsk, Sverdlovsk Oblast) in the Ural mountains as the son of a priest, he became interested in natural sciences early in his youth. His father ensured that Alexander received a good education at the seminary at Perm, and later studying physics at the St. Petersburg university. After graduation in 1882 he started to work as a laboratory assistant at the university. However due to the bad funding of the university he changed to a teaching job at the Russian Navy's Torpedo School in Kronstadt on Kotlin Island.

Radio

Beginning in the early 1890s he conducted experiments along the lines of Heinrich Hertz's research. In 1894 he built his first radio receiver, which contained a coherer. Further refined as a lightning detector, he presented it to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society on May 7, 1895 — the day has been celebrated in the Russian Federation as "Radio Day". The paper on his findings was published the same year (December 15, 1895). In 1896, the article depicted Popov's invention was reprinted in 'Journal of Russian Physical and Chemical Society'. In March 1896, he effected transmission of radio waves between different campus buildings in St Petersburg. In November 1897 French entrepreneur Eugene Ducretet in his own laboratory made transmitter and receiver of wireless telegraphy. According to Ducretet, he built his devices being acknowledged about Popov's lightning detector from scientific journal. In 1898 Ducretet was manufacturing equipment of wireless telegraphy based on Popov's instructions. At the same time A.S. Popov effected ship-to-shore communication over a distance of 6 miles in 1898 and 30 miles in 1899.

In 1900 radio station established under Popov's instructions on Hogland island (Suursaari) provided a two-way communication by wireless telegraphy between Russian navy base and crew of the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin. The battleship run aground Gogland island in the Gulf of Finland in November, 1899. The crew of the Apraksin was not in immediate danger, but the water in the Gulf was beginning to freeze. If the ship survived without serious damage until spring, it would likely be crushed by moving ice floes. Due to bad weather and bureaucratic red tape, the crew of Apraksin to establish a wireless station on Gogland Island did not arrive there until January of 1900. By February 5, however, messages were being received reliably. The wireless messages were relayed to Gogland Island by a station some 25 miles away at Kotka on the Finnish coast. Kotka was selected as the location for the wireless relay station because it was the point closest to Gogland Island served by telegraph wires connected to Russian naval headquarters.

By the time the Apraksin was freed from the rocks by the icebreaker Yermak at the end of April, 440 official telegraph messages had been handled by the Gogland Island wireless station. Besides Apraksin's crew, more than 50 lives of Finnish fishermen, which were stranded on a piece of drift ice in the Gulf of Finland, were saved by icebreaker Yermak because of distress telegrams sent by wireless telegraphy. At the very same time, Guglielmo Marconi was making his first experiments of signal transmission. In 1900, Popov stated (in front of the Congress of Russian Electrical Engineers),

"the emission and reception of signals by Marconi by means of electric oscillations [was nothing new. In America, the famous engineer Nikola Tesla carried the same experiments in 1893." "The Guglielmo Marconi Case; Who is the True Inventor of Radio".

In 1901 Alexander Popov was appointed as professor at the Electrotechnical Institute which now bears his name. In 1905 he was elected as the director of the institute.

Death

In 1905 he became seriously ill, after being very uneasy about the suppression of a student movement. He died of a brain hemorrhage on December 31, 1905 which corresponds to January 13, 1906 in the Gregorian calendar.

References and resources

Citations

General

Alexander Popov: Russia's Radio Pioneer by James P. Rybak
Short biographies of Popov
Alexander Stepanovich Popov : Life and Inventions
Lightning detector and radiostations of Popov's design : history of manufacturing- article in Russian

1859 births | 1906 deaths | Russian physicists | Russian inventors | Radio pioneers

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Birth

Radio

Death

See also

References and resources