Alexander Stepanovich Popov
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was a
Russian
physicist who was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic waves .
Encyclopedia
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was a
Russian
physicist who was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic waves .
Birth
Born in the village Turinskiye Rudniki 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 . 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 provided a two-way communication by wireless telegraphy between Russian navy base and crew of the battleship
General-Admiral Apraksin. The battleship run aground Hogland 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 Hogland Island did not arrive there until January of 1900. 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
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 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 ,
- "[...] 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."
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.
See also
References and resources
;Citations
;General
- by James P. Rybak
- - article in Russian
