Alexander Stepanovich Popov

Russian physicist and electrical engineer (1859–1906)

Popov, the son of a priest from Bogoslavsky in Russia, was educated in a seminary to prepare him for a clerical profession. His interest however turned to physics and mathematics, which he studied at the University of St. Petersburg between 1877 and 1882. While still a student he worked in 1881 at the Electrotekhinik artel, which operated Russia's first electric power stations. He taught for a short time at the university and then in 1883 joined the staff of the Torpedo School at Kronstadt, where naval specialists were trained in all branches of electrical engineering and where he was able to conduct his own research. He subsequently became head of the physics department and remained there until 1900. Popov returned to St. Petersburg as professor at the Institute of Electrical Engineering in 1901 and was appointed its director in 1905. Later that year Popov's health was undermined by his refusal to take severe action against the political disturbances among his students and he died shortly after.

In 1888 Heinrich Hertz had produced and transmitted electromagnetic waves, arousing the interest of many scientists. Popov began experiments on the transmission and reception of the so-called Hertzian waves (radio waves) somewhat earlier than Marconi. He modified the coherer developed by Oliver Lodge for detecting these waves, making the first continuously operating detector. Connecting his coherer to a wire antenna, he was able in 1895 to receive and detect the waves produced by an oscillator circuit. His interests at this time, however, seemed more toward the investigation of atmospheric phenomena such as thunderstorms and lightning; he used his coherer connected to lightning conductors for this purpose. Stimulated by the 1896 patent awarded to Marconi, Popov again turned his attention to radio transmission and enlisted the help of the Russian navy. In 1897 he was able to transmit from ship to shore over a distance of 3 miles (5 km) and managed to persuade the naval authorities to begin installing radio equipment in its vessels. By the end of 1899 he had increased the distance of his ship to shore transmissions to 30 miles (48 km). He received little encouragement or support from the Russian government and did not commercialize his discoveries.

The Russian claim that Popov invented radio communication is not widely accepted, although he did publish in January 1896 a description of his receiving apparatus that coincides very closely with that described in Marconi's patent claim of June 1896. Popov is credited however with being the first to use an antenna in the transmission and reception of radio waves.

(1859 - 1905), prominent mathematician and physicist.

Russia claims that Alexander Stepanovich Popov invented the radio before the Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi. Determining who was the official inventor of the radio is complicated by nationalistic pride, inadequate documentation of events, and differing interpretations of what constitutes inventing the radio. By what most persons in the West consider objective analysis of the facts known, however, Marconi's work invariably is recognized as having priority over Popov's. However, Popov's numerous achievements do merit both recognition and respect. Popov was the chair of the Department of Physics at St. Petersburg University in 1901 and director of the St. Petersburg Institute of Electrical Engineering in 1905. On May 7, 1895, Popov demonstrated that a receiver could detect the electromagnetic waves produced by lightning discharges in the atmosphere many miles away. Popov's receiver consisted of a "coherer" made of metal filings, together with an antenna, a relay, and a bell. The relay was used to activate the bell that both signaled the occurrence of lightning and served as a "decoherer" (tapper) to ready the coherer to detect the next lightning discharge. The value this instrument could have in weather forecasting was obvious. In 1865 the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell had predicted that electromagnetic waves existed. In 1888 a German scientist Heinrich Hertz had proven that electro-magnetic waves definitely did exist. Still, no one had yet found any practical use for these electro-magnetic or "Hertzian" waves.

Almost a year after his first experiment, Popov conducted another public experiment on March 24, 1896 that demonstrated the transmission and reception of information by wireless telegraphy. On that day the Russian Physical and Chemical Society convened at St. Petersburg University. Wireless telegraph signals, transmitted a distance of more than 800 feet (243 meters) from another building on the campus, were audible to all in the meeting room. One professor stood at the blackboard and recorded the alphabetical letters represented by the Morse code signals. The letters spelled out the name "Heinrich Hertz."

Unfortunately this experiment was never officially recorded. Meanwhile Guglielmo Marconi filed an application for the patent on wireless telegraphy on June 2, 1896, and his first public demonstration occurred in July of that year. Although both of Popov's experiments took place before Marconi filed the patent, it is widely known that Marconi had already made considerable breakthroughs prior to Popov's March 24, 1896, experiment, including the transmission and reception of simple messages. Nevertheless, Popov's achievements were recognized. In 1900 he was awarded a Gold Metal at the Fourth World Congress of Electrical Engineering.

Bibliography

Birch, Beverley. (2001). Guglielmo Marconi: Radio Pioneer. Woodbridge, CT: Blackbirch Press.

Kraeuter, David W. (1992). Radio and Television Pioneers: A Patent Bibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Radovskii, M. I. (1957). Alexander Popov, Inventor of Radio. Moscow: Foreign Language Pub. House.

—JOHANNA GRANVILLE

Alexander Stepanovich Popov
Born	March 4/16 1859
Died	December 31/January 13 1905/1906
Occupation	inventor and physicist
Religious beliefs	Atheist

Alexander Stepanovich Popov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Степа́нович Попо́в; March 16 [O.S. March 4] 1859 – January 13 [O.S. December 31, 1905] 1906) was a Russian physicist who first demonstrated the practical application of electromagnetic (radio) waves,^[1] although he did not apply for a patent for his invention.

Beginning in the early 1890s he continued the experiments of other radio pioneers, such as Heinrich Hertz. In 1894 he built his first radio receiver, a version of the coherer. Further refined as a lightning detector, it was presented 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. In March 1896, he effected transmission of radio waves between different campus buildings in St Petersburg. Upon learning about Guglielmo Marconi's system, he effected ship-to-shore communication over a distance of 6 miles in 1898 and 30 miles in 1899.

Contents 1 Birth 2 Radio 3 Death and legacy 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

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, it was presented 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 depicting Popov's invention was reprinted in the 'Journal of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society'. In March 1896, he effected transmission of radio waves between different campus buildings in St. Petersburg. In November 1897, the French entrepreneur Eugene Ducretet made a transmitter and receiver based on wireless telegraphy in his own laboratory. According to Ducretet, he built his devices using Popov's lightning detector as a model. By 1898 Ducretet was manufacturing equipment of wireless telegraphy based on Popov's instructions. At the same time Popov effected ship-to-shore communication over a distance of 6 miles in 1898 and 30 miles in 1899.

Radio pioneer Alexander Popov on the 1989 USSR stamp.

In 1900 a radio station was established under Popov's instructions on Hogland island (Suursaari) to provide two-way communication by wireless telegraphy between the Russian naval base and the crew of the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin. The battleship ran aground on Hogland island in the Gulf of Finland in November, 1899. The crew of the Apraksin were not in immediate danger, but the water in the Gulf began to freeze. Due to bad weather and bureaucratic red tape, the crew of Apraksin did not arrive until January 1900 to establish a wireless station on Hogland Island. By February 5, however, messages were being received reliably. The wireless messages were relayed to Hogland Island by a station some 25 miles away at Kymi (nowadays Kotka) on the Finnish coast. Kotka was selected as the location for the wireless relay station because it was the point closest to Hogland 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 Hogland Island wireless station. Besides the rescue of the Apraksin's crew, more than 50 Finnish fishermen, who were stranded on a piece of drift ice in the Gulf of Finland, were saved by the icebreaker Yermak following distress telegrams sent by wireless telegraphy. 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."^[2]

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

Death and legacy

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.

A minor planet 3074 Popov discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1979 is named after him.^[3]

See also

• All-Russia exhibition 1896
• Invention of radio

Notes

1. ^ "Early Radio Transmission Recognized as Milestone". IEEE. http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.130a3558587d56e8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=institute_level1_article&TheCat=1008&article=tionline/legacy/inst2005/may05/5w.fhistory.xml&. Retrieved 16 July 2006. 
2. ^ "The Guglielmo Marconi Case; Who is the True Inventor of Radio".
3. ^ Dictionary of Minor Planet Names – p.250

References

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

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alexander Stepanovich Popov

• Aleksandr Popov, Soviet 1949 biopic watchable and downloadable with Esperanto subtitles

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