Ernst Werner von Siemens
Encyclopedia
Ernst Werner Siemens, von Siemens since 1888, (13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German inventor and industrialist. Siemens' name has been adopted as the SI
unit of electrical conductance, the siemens
. He was also the founder of the electrical and telecommunications company Siemens
.
, near Hannover, Germany, the fourth child (of fourteen) of a tenant farmer
. He is a brother of Carl Heinrich von Siemens
and Carl Wilhelm Siemens
, sons of Christian Ferdinand Siemens (31 July 1787 - 16 January 1840) and wife Eleonore Deichmann (1792 - 8 July 1839).
. Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals. Upon returning home from war, he put his mind to other uses. He is known world-wide for his advances in various technologies, and chose to work on perfecting technologies that had already been established. Siemens invented a telegraph
that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using Morse code
. Based on this invention, he founded the company Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske on 1 October 1847, with the company taking occupation of its workshop on 12 October.
The company was internationalised soon after its founding. One brother of Werner represented him in England (Sir William Siemens
) and another in St.Petersburg, Russia
(Carl von Siemens
), each earning separate recognition in their own right. Following his industrial career, he was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 in Berlin.
The company, reorganized as Siemens & Halske AG, Siemens-Schuckertwerke and – since 1966 – Siemens AG
was later led by his brothers, his four sons Arnold
, Wilhelm
, and Carl Friedrich
and his nephews Hermann
, Ernst
and Peter von Siemens
. Siemens AG is still one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world.
and is therefore known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world's first electric elevator
in 1880. His company produced the tubes with which Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen investigated x-rays. He claimed invention of the dynamo
although others invented it earlier. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the Bell System
in the late 1920s for use as a loudspeaker
. Wente's adaptation was issued US patent 1,707,545 in 1929. Siemens is also the father of the trolleybus
which he initially tried and tested with his "Elektromote
" on 29 April 1882.
and Georg Wilhelm von Siemens
. Children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens (1870 - 5 January 1939), married in 1899 to Carl Dietrich Harries, and Carl Friedrich von Siemens
.
Si
Si, si, or SI may refer to :- Measurement, mathematics and science :* International System of Units , the modern international standard version of the metric system...
unit of electrical conductance, the siemens
Siemens (unit)
The siemens is the SI derived unit of electric conductance and electric admittance. Conductance and admittance are the reciprocals of resistance and impedance respectively, hence one siemens is equal to the reciprocal of one ohm, and is sometimes referred to as the mho. In English, the term...
. He was also the founder of the electrical and telecommunications company Siemens
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
.
Early years
Werner Siemens was born in Lenthe, today part of GehrdenGehrden
Gehrden is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. southwest of Hanover.- References :...
, near Hannover, Germany, the fourth child (of fourteen) of a tenant farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
. He is a brother of Carl Heinrich von Siemens
Carl Heinrich von Siemens
Carl Heinrich von Siemens was a German entrepreneur, a child of a tenant farmer. He is a brother of Ernst Werner von Siemens and William Siemens, sons of Christian Ferdinand Siemens and wife Eleonore Deichmann...
and Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens was a German born engineer who for most of his life worked in Britain and later became a British subject.-Biography:...
, sons of Christian Ferdinand Siemens (31 July 1787 - 16 January 1840) and wife Eleonore Deichmann (1792 - 8 July 1839).
Middle years
Siemens left school without finishing his education, but joined the army to undertake training in engineeringEngineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
. Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals. Upon returning home from war, he put his mind to other uses. He is known world-wide for his advances in various technologies, and chose to work on perfecting technologies that had already been established. Siemens invented a telegraph
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
. Based on this invention, he founded the company Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske on 1 October 1847, with the company taking occupation of its workshop on 12 October.
The company was internationalised soon after its founding. One brother of Werner represented him in England (Sir William Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens was a German born engineer who for most of his life worked in Britain and later became a British subject.-Biography:...
) and another in St.Petersburg, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
(Carl von Siemens
Carl Heinrich von Siemens
Carl Heinrich von Siemens was a German entrepreneur, a child of a tenant farmer. He is a brother of Ernst Werner von Siemens and William Siemens, sons of Christian Ferdinand Siemens and wife Eleonore Deichmann...
), each earning separate recognition in their own right. Following his industrial career, he was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 in Berlin.
The company, reorganized as Siemens & Halske AG, Siemens-Schuckertwerke and – since 1966 – Siemens AG
Siemens AG
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....
was later led by his brothers, his four sons Arnold
Arnold von Siemens
Arnold von Siemens was a German telecommunications industrialist, one of the successors on his family's company, the son of Ernst Werner von Siemens and his first wife Mathilde Duman....
, Wilhelm
Georg Wilhelm von Siemens
Georg Wilhelm von Siemens was a German telecommunications industrialist.Known as Wilhelm von Siemens, he was the son of Werner von Siemens by first wife Mathilde Duman and was a general partner of Siemens AG.Married in 1882 to Eleonore Siemens , and were the parents of:* Wilhelm Ferdinand...
, and Carl Friedrich
Carl Friedrich von Siemens
Carl Friedrich von Siemens was a German Entrepreneur and politician...
and his nephews Hermann
Hermann von Siemens
Hermann von Siemens was a German industrialist who became head of the German electrical and electronics company Siemens AG in 1941 and served until 1956. He was the son of Arnold von Siemens and wife Ellen von Helmholtz and paternal grandson of Ernst Werner von Siemens and first wife Mathilde...
, Ernst
Ernst von Siemens
Ernst Albrecht von Siemens , the son of Carl Friedrich von Siemens, was a German industrialist and one of the successors of his family's company.-Life:...
and Peter von Siemens
Peter von Siemens
Peter von Siemens was a German industrialist.He was the great grandson of Ernst Werner von Siemens. He was chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG from 1971 to 1981...
. Siemens AG is still one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world.
Later years
Apart from the pointer telegraph Siemens made several contributions to the development of electrical engineeringElectrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
and is therefore known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world's first electric elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
in 1880. His company produced the tubes with which Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen investigated x-rays. He claimed invention of the dynamo
Dynamo
- Engineering :* Dynamo, a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator* Dynamo theory, a theory relating to magnetic fields of celestial bodies* Solar dynamo, the physical process that generates the Sun's magnetic field- Software :...
although others invented it earlier. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the Bell System
Bell System
The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...
in the late 1920s for use as a loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
. Wente's adaptation was issued US patent 1,707,545 in 1929. Siemens is also the father of the trolleybus
Trolleybus
A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...
which he initially tried and tested with his "Elektromote
Elektromote
The Electromote was the world's first vehicle run like a trolleybus, which was first presented to the public on April 29, 1882, by its inventor Dr. Ernst Werner von Siemens in Halensee, a suburb of Berlin, Germany. The Elektromote operated from April 29 to June 13, 1882, on a 540 m ...
" on 29 April 1882.
Personal life
He married twice, first in 1852 to Mathilde Duman (died 1 July 1867) and second in 1869 to his relative Antonie Siemens (1840–1900). Children from first marriage were Arnold von SiemensArnold von Siemens
Arnold von Siemens was a German telecommunications industrialist, one of the successors on his family's company, the son of Ernst Werner von Siemens and his first wife Mathilde Duman....
and Georg Wilhelm von Siemens
Georg Wilhelm von Siemens
Georg Wilhelm von Siemens was a German telecommunications industrialist.Known as Wilhelm von Siemens, he was the son of Werner von Siemens by first wife Mathilde Duman and was a general partner of Siemens AG.Married in 1882 to Eleonore Siemens , and were the parents of:* Wilhelm Ferdinand...
. Children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens (1870 - 5 January 1939), married in 1899 to Carl Dietrich Harries, and Carl Friedrich von Siemens
Carl Friedrich von Siemens
Carl Friedrich von Siemens was a German Entrepreneur and politician...
.
Patents
— Electric meter (19 November 1889) — Electric meter (20 May 1890) — Electric railway (22 May 1894) — Method of and apparatus for extracting gold from its ores (22 March 1898)See also
- :de:Werner von Siemens more in-depth than English version
- Friedrich von Hefner-AlteneckFriedrich von Hefner-AlteneckFriedrich Heinrich Philipp Franz von Hefner-Alteneck was a German electrical engineer and one of the closest aides of Werner von Siemens. He is largely remembered for the invention of the Hefner lamp, which provided the measure of luminous intensity used in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia from...
One of Siemens's aides - Werner-von-Siemens-Ring
- German inventors and discoverersGerman inventors and discoverersThis is a list of German inventors and discoverers. The following list comprises people from Germany or German-speaking Europe, also of people of predominantly German heritage, in alphabetical order of the surname. The main section includes existing articles, indicated by blue links, and possibly...
External links
- Biography, Siemens Corporate Archives
- Loudspeaker History (U. of San Diego)
- Short biography and bibliography in the Virtual LaboratoryVirtual LaboratoryThe online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life...
of the Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceMax Planck Institute for the History of ScienceThe Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin was established in March 1994. Its research is primarily devoted to a theoretically oriented history of science, principally of the natural sciences, but with methodological perspectives drawn from the cognitive sciences and from...
Further reading
- Werner von Siemens, Lebenserinnerungen, Berlin, 1892 (reprinted as Mein Leben, Zeulenroda, 1939).
- Werner von Siemens, Scientific & Technical Papers of Werner von Siemens. Vol. 1: Scientific Papers and Addresses, London, 1892; Vol. 2: Technical Papers, London, 1895.
- Sigfrid von Weiher, Werner von Siemens, A Life in the Service of Science, Technology and Industry, Göttingen, 1975.
- Wilfried Feldenkirchen, Werner von Siemens, Inventor and International Entrepreneur. Columbus, Ohio, 1994.
- Wilfried Feldenkirchen / Eberhard Posner, The Siemens Entrepreneurs, Continuity and Change, 1847–2005, Ten Portraits, Munich, 2005.