Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov (also
mistransliteratedTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
as Jablochkoff) (
Павел Николаевич Яблочков in
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
) (( – ) was a Russian electrical engineer, the
inventorAn inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means. The word inventor comes form the latin verb invenire, invent-, to find...
of the
Yablochkov candleA Yablochkov candle is a type of electric carbon arc lamp, invented in 1876 by Pavel Yablochkov.-Design:A Yablochkov candle consists of a sandwich of two long carbon blocks, approximately 6 by 12 millimetres in cross-section, separated by a block of inert material such as plaster of paris or kaolin...
(a type of electric carbon
arc lampAn arc lamp or arc light is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, typically made of tungsten, which are separated by a gas. The type of lamp is often named by the gas contained in the bulb; including neon, argon, xenon,...
) and businessman.
Jablochkov graduated from Nikolayev Engineering Institute as a
military engineerA military engineer is primarily responsible for the design and construction of offensive, defensive, and logistical structures for warfare. Other duties include the layout, placement, maintenance and dismantling of defensive minefields and the clearing of enemy minefields and the construction...
in 1866, and from Technical Galvanic School in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
in 1869. After serving in the army, Yablochkov settled in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
in 1873, where he was appointed Head of Telegraph Office at the Moscow-
KurskKursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. Kursk was a key turning point of the Russian-German war during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in World War II...
railroad.
Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov (also
mistransliteratedTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
as Jablochkoff) (
Павел Николаевич Яблочков in
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
) (( – ) was a Russian electrical engineer, the
inventorAn inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means. The word inventor comes form the latin verb invenire, invent-, to find...
of the
Yablochkov candleA Yablochkov candle is a type of electric carbon arc lamp, invented in 1876 by Pavel Yablochkov.-Design:A Yablochkov candle consists of a sandwich of two long carbon blocks, approximately 6 by 12 millimetres in cross-section, separated by a block of inert material such as plaster of paris or kaolin...
(a type of electric carbon
arc lampAn arc lamp or arc light is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, typically made of tungsten, which are separated by a gas. The type of lamp is often named by the gas contained in the bulb; including neon, argon, xenon,...
) and businessman.
Biography
Jablochkov graduated from Nikolayev Engineering Institute as a
military engineerA military engineer is primarily responsible for the design and construction of offensive, defensive, and logistical structures for warfare. Other duties include the layout, placement, maintenance and dismantling of defensive minefields and the clearing of enemy minefields and the construction...
in 1866, and from Technical Galvanic School in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
in 1869. After serving in the army, Yablochkov settled in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
in 1873, where he was appointed Head of Telegraph Office at the Moscow-
KurskKursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. Kursk was a key turning point of the Russian-German war during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in World War II...
railroad. He opened up a workshop for his experiments in electrical engineering, which laid down the foundations for his future inventions in the field of electric
lightingLighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some aesthetic or practical effect. Lighting includes use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and natural illumination of interiors from daylight. Daylighting is often used as the main source of light during...
, electric machines,
galvanic cellThe Galvanic cell, named after Luigi Galvani, is a part of a battery consisting of an electrochemical cell with two different metals connected by a salt bridge or a porous disk between the individual half-cells...
s and
accumulatorsAn accumulator is an apparatus by means of which energy can be stored, such as a rechargeable battery or a hydraulic accumulator. Such devices may be electrical, fluidic or mechanical and are sometimes used to convert a small continuous power source into a short surge of energy or vice versa...
.
Yablochkov’s major invention was the first model of an arc lamp that eliminated the mechanical complexity of competing lights that required a regulator to manage the voltaic arc. He went to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
the same year where he built an industrial sample of the "electric candle" (
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
№ 112024, 1876). It was in Paris that he developed his arc light idea into a complete system of electric lighting powered by
Zénobe GrammeZénobe Théophile Gramme was a Belgian electrical engineer.In spite of the fact that he was semi-literate and had no advanced knowledge of mathematics, in 1869, he invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating smoother and much higher voltages than the dynamos...
direct current dynamos fitted with an inverter to supply single-phase
alternating currentIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again...
. The first public use of the Yablochkov system was in October 1877 at Halle Marengo of the Magasins du
LouvreThe Musée du Louvre or officially the Grand Louvre — in English, the Louvre Museum or Great Louvre, or simply the Louvre — is the largest national museum of France, the most visited museum in the world, and a historic monument. It is a central landmark of Paris, located on the Right Bank of the...
which was lit by 6 arc lights. By 1880, the system had grown in size to 120 lamps with 84 lit at a time powered by and had been operating every night for two and one half years.
The
Paris Exposition of 1878The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from May 1 though to November 10, 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.-Construction:...
presented Yablochkov with the unique opportunity to make a spectacular demonstration for a world audience, and through the promotional efforts of Gramme was successful in having 64 of his
arc lightsAn arc lamp or arc light is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, typically made of tungsten, which are separated by a gas. The type of lamp is often named by the gas contained in the bulb; including neon, argon, xenon,...
installed along the half mile length of Avenue de l'Opera, Place du Theatre Francais and around the Place de l'Opera. It was first lit in February 1878.. Yablochkov candles required high voltage, and it was not long before experimenters reported that the arc lights could be powered on a 7 mile circuit. Yablochkov candles were superior to Lontin-Serrin regulator arc lights that each required a separate Gramme generator. Beginning in 1880, the Paris Hippodrome's 20 Serrin lights powered by 20 generators were replaced by 68 additional Yablochkov candles, based on 2 years of positive experience with 60 candles powered by just 3 generators. The impact of the 1878 Paris demonstration was a depression in the value of gas company shares which did not recover until 1880. French,
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
businessmen quickly set up companies licensing Yablochkov's patents.
As part of his arc lighting patents, Yablochkov described a method of employing
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
's discover of
inductionFaraday's law of induction is a basic law of electromagnetism, which is involved in the working of transformers, inductors, and many forms of electrical generators. The law states:...
to create a continuous current of higher voltage, where primary windings were connected to a source of alternating current and secondary windings could be connected to several electric "candles". Although it was not recognized at the time, Yablochkov's idea of using
transformerA transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core, and thus a varying magnetic field...
s to provide different voltages from the same AC line was the model that modern transmission and
distributionFile:Electricity grid simple- North America.svg|thumb|380px|right|Simplified diagram of AC electricity distribution from generation stations to consumersrect 2 243 235 438 Power stationrect 276 317 412 556 Transformer...
systems would settle on. As the patent said such a system "allowed to provide separate supply to several lighting fixtures with different luminous intensities from a single source of electric power".
In 1879, Yablochkov established “Electric Lighting Company, P.N. Yablochkov the Inventor and Co” and an electrical plant in Petersburg that would later produce illuminators for military
vesselsA ship is a large vessel that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and passenger capacity. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing, entertainment, public...
and factories. There was considerable international competition to his arc lights. His lasted only one and a half hours whereas those of
Charles F. BrushCharles Francis Brush was a U.S. inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist.-Biography:Born in Euclid Township, Ohio, Brush was raised on a farm about 10 miles from downtown Cleveland...
lasted twice as long.
From the mid-1880s, Yablochkov mostly occupied himself with problems of generating electric
energyIn physics, energy is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of work that can be performed by a force, an attribute of objects and systems that is subject to a conservation law...
. He constructed the so called “magnet dynamo electric machine”, which had most of the features of the modern
inductorAn inductor or a reactor is a passive electrical component that can store energy in a magnetic field created by the electric current passing through it. An inductor's ability to store magnetic energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries...
. Yablochkov did extensive research on
transformationIn chemistry a chemical transformation shows the conversion of a substrate to a product omitting the reagents and catalysts or underlying reaction mechanism as opposed to a chemical reaction...
of fuel energy into electric energy, suggested a galvanic cell with alkaline
electrolyteIn chemistry, an electrolyte is any substance containing free ions that behaves as an electrically conductive medium, usually when in a solution...
, and created a regenerative cell (the so called autoaccumulator).
Yablochkov participated in Electrical engineering exhibitions in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
(1880 and 1882), Paris (1881 and 1889), and First International Congress of
ElectricianAn electrician is a tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, stationary machines and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance and repair of existing electrical infrastructure...
s (1881).
Legacy
In 1947, the
USSRThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
introduced the Yablochkov Award for the best work in the field of electrical engineering.
The crater
YablochkovYablochkov is a ruined lunar crater that is located on the northern hemisphere of the Moon's far side. It lies almost due south of the large walled plain Schwarzschild....
on the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
is named after him.
See also
- Yablochkov candle
A Yablochkov candle is a type of electric carbon arc lamp, invented in 1876 by Pavel Yablochkov.-Design:A Yablochkov candle consists of a sandwich of two long carbon blocks, approximately 6 by 12 millimetres in cross-section, separated by a block of inert material such as plaster of paris or kaolin...
Further reading
- A biographical research of the life of Pavel Nikolayevich Yablockkov by Prof. Lev Davidovich Belkind
Prof. Lev Davidovich Belkind Prof. Lev Davidovich Belkind Prof. Lev Davidovich Belkind was a Soviet scientist, engineer and historian; author of numerous publications on the history of science and technology....