Who invented the electric torch. How the flashlight was invented. Application of light sources

29.05.2011

Many will find it strange that such a seemingly simple device as everyone is familiar with is a very recent invention. It was invented at the end of the nineteenth century, despite the fact that at that time houses were already almost universally illuminated by electric light bulbs.

Most likely, the creation of a compact portable flashlight was slowed down by the fact that in those days there were no dry batteries. The batteries that existed at that time were containers filled with liquid electrolyte, which were difficult to carry. Therefore, when it comes to this invention, it is worth mentioning Karl Gassner first - it was he who, in 1886, first invented and patented a battery from which, no matter how you look at it, the electrolyte did not leak.

The lamp itself, which became the prototype of modern electric flashlights, was created in 1899 by the American inventor David Maisell. In the same year, he sold his patent to the American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company, which was founded by Conrad Hubert, an emigrant from Belarus. Externally, Maisell's invention was very reminiscent of a modern keychain flashlight, only in an enlarged form - it was a thick cardboard tube into which a light bulb with a lens and a metal reflector was mounted. Inside the tube there were three cylindrical power sources. The first flashlight had a switch that was very unusual in its design - in order to light it, you had to press a metal ring attached to a metal hoop covering the body. This rather inconvenient design was soon replaced by a more ergonomic and reliable switch, invented by Conrad Hubert.

Since the batteries did not have a long service life, the first flashlights shone rather dimly and, unlike modern products, were used not as a source of bright light, but as a flash that could momentarily illuminate something necessary. That's why the Americans got the corresponding name for their portable flashlight: flashlight - a flashing light or a flash of light. But the British gave the pocket electric flashlight a different name - torch, that is, torch. This is most likely due to the fact that these devices arrived in Foggy Albion in an improved form. Of course, it was not yet such a bright LED flashlight, familiar to us now, but still it has undergone significant changes for the better.

All this time, Maissell and Hubert worked together to improve the design of the electric flashlight, but they became famous only when their brainchild was appreciated by the New York police officers - the inventors gave them flashlights for advertising purposes.

Serial production of lanterns, which were produced under the Eveready brand, was established in 1905 by The American Ever Ready Company, to which Hubert renamed his company. Now they are widespread and can be used everywhere.

Powerful illumination of megacities and street lighting of small settlements have made the life of modern people active, regardless of the time of day. At the same time, no one thinks about the question - who invented electric street lighting? , and how the lanterns were created.

The first street lamps and their creators

Artificial street lighting has come into use since the 15th century. The very first lantern provided a small area of illumination, as it used paraffin candles or hemp oil. Thanks to kerosene, the level of brightness on the streets was increased. But a revolutionary breakthrough occurred when the first electric lamp was invented, in the design of which carbon, and then tungsten and molybdenum filaments were used.

Jan van der Heijden

In the 17th century, the Dutch artist and inventor Hayden proposed placing oil lanterns along the streets of Amsterdam. Thanks to the system invented by Hayden, in 1668, the number of people falling into canals that were not fenced decreased, the number of crimes on the streets decreased, and the work of firefighters when extinguishing fires was made easier.

William Murdoch

In the 19th century, William Murdoch put forward an interesting idea about a way to light streets with gas, but he was laughed at. Despite ridicule, Murdoch clearly demonstrated that it was possible. This is how the first gas lighting devices came on fire on the streets of London in 1807. A little later, the inventor’s design spread to other European capitals.

Pavel Yablochkov

In 1876, Russian engineer Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov invented an electric candle and installed it in a glass sphere. The design was simple but effective. A carbon thread ran across the candles. When it came into contact with current, the thread burned out, and an arc lit up between the candles. This phenomenon, called arc electricity, marked the beginning of the first electrical devices. Russian “candles,” as they were called, were installed on the Liteiny Bridge in 1879. Also, 12 Yablochkov lamps were lit on the drawbridge across the Neva. The invention of electric street lighting marked the beginning of a new era in the use of electric current.

Interesting fact: in 1883, during the coronation of Emperor Alexander III, incandescent lamps illuminated the circular area near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Kremlin.

The fruits of the invention were taken advantage of in European capitals.
Parisian and Berlin streets, shops, coastal areas - everything was illuminated by street lamps created using this Yablochkov technology. Residents called the street illumination symbolically: “Russian light,” and Pavel Yablochkov, a Russian engineer who invented electric street lighting, became known at that time in all enlightened circles of Europe.

However, after many world capitals were illuminated by the bright but short-lived light of arc electricity from Yablochkov’s “candles,” these devices lasted only a few years. They were replaced by more advanced incandescent lamps. The invention of the Russian engineer was practically forgotten, and Pavel Nikolaevich himself died in poverty in provincial Saratov.

A new stage in the development of street lighting

A significant contribution to the development of electric street lighting was made by the Russian scientist Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin and the American Thomas Alva Edison.

Lodygin created a light bulb design based on molybdenum and tungsten filaments twisted in a spiral. This was a breakthrough in the field of electrical discoveries. One of the most important criteria for a lighting device is the duration of operation. It was Lodygin who raised the resource of his lamps from 30 minutes to several hundred hours of operation. He was the first to use lamps with a vacuum, pumping air out of them. This made it possible to significantly extend the service life of the lighting device.

For the first time, Lodygin incandescent lamps appeared in street lighting on Odesskaya Street in St. Petersburg in 1873.

Having received a patent and a prize for his invention, Alexander Nikolaevich was unable to distribute it to the masses. The talented engineer did not have entrepreneurial acumen and was unable to bring production to the required scale.

Another engineer, the American Thomas Edison, was distinguished by his persistence in achieving his goal. It was he who, taking Lodygin’s invention as a basis, improved its design and was able to introduce it into widespread production. It cannot be said that Edison received his fame undeservedly. After all, he persistently conducted thousands of experiments and developed a very important stage in electric lighting - from the current source to the consumer, which made it possible to launch electric lighting on the scale of entire cities.

Thus, thanks to the knowledge of the Russian engineer Lodygin and the agility of the American scientist Edison, electric street lighting replaced gas lamps.

What the first lanterns looked like: video

According to history, the first attempts to use artificial lighting on urban streets date back to the beginning of the 15th century.

Back in 1417, the mayor of London, Henry Barton, ordered the hanging street lamps winter evenings. He took this step in order to dispel the impenetrable darkness in the British capital. The French decided not to lag behind and after some time they took up his initiative.

Baselona Gaudi lanterns

At the very beginning of the 16th century, every resident of the French capital was required to keep lamps near the windows that face the street. It was under Louis XIV that Paris was filled with the lights of numerous lanterns. In 1667, he issued a decree on street lighting, for which he received the nickname “Sun King”. According to legend, it was thanks to this decree that Louis’s reign was called brilliant.

Venice

The first street lamps provided relatively little light because they used ordinary candles and oil. Later, when kerosene began to be used, the brightness of lighting was significantly increased, but the real revolution in street light happened only at the beginning of the 19th century, when gas lamps appeared. They were invented by the English inventor William Murdoch. Naturally, at first he was ridiculed.
Voronezh

Walter Scott himself wrote to one of his friends that some madman was proposing to illuminate London with smoke. These ridicule did not stop Murdoch from bringing his idea to life and he successfully demonstrated the advantages of gas lighting.

Germany

In 1807, lanterns of a new design were installed on Pall Mall and soon conquered all European capitals. In Russia, street lighting appeared under Peter I.

Egypt

In 1706, he ordered lanterns to be hung on the facades of some houses near the Peter and Paul Fortress to celebrate the victory over the Swedes near Kalisz.

Kyiv This chandelier serves as a street lamp near a cafe

In 1718, the first stationary lamps appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg, and 12 years later, Empress Anna Ioannovna ordered their installation in Moscow.

China

The history of electric lighting is associated primarily with the names of the Russian inventor Alexander Lodygin and the American Thomas Edison.

Lviv

In 1873, Lodygin designed a carbon incandescent lamp, for which he received the Lomonosov Prize from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Such lamps were soon used to illuminate the St. Petersburg Admiralty. A few years later, Edison demonstrated an improved light bulb - brighter and cheaper to produce.

Moscow

With its advent, gas lamps quickly disappeared from city streets, giving way to electric ones.

Budapest

In Bryansk

Venice

Venna

Dubrovnik

Egg Castle Bavaria Alps

Zichron Yaakov 19th century

Spain

China city Shenzhen

Kronstadt

London

Lviv

Moscow

Over Damascus

Odessa

Paris

Shevchenko Park Kyiv

Peter

Turtle area Siena

Rome

Talin

Look around the world is still full of beautiful things...

In 1417, the mayor of London, Henry Barton, ordered lanterns to be hung on winter evenings to dispel the impenetrable darkness in the British capital. After some time, the French took up his initiative. At the beginning of the 16th century, residents of Paris were required to keep lamps near windows that faced the street. Under Louis XIV, the French capital was filled with the lights of numerous lanterns. The Sun King issued a special decree on street lighting in 1667. According to legend, it was thanks to this decree that Louis’s reign was called brilliant.

The first street lamps provided relatively little light because they used ordinary candles and oil. The use of kerosene made it possible to significantly increase the brightness of lighting, but the real revolution in street light occurred only at the beginning of the 19th century, when gas lamps appeared. Their inventor, the Englishman William Murdoch, was initially ridiculed. Walter Scott wrote to one of his friends that some madman was proposing to illuminate London with smoke. Despite such criticisms, Murdoch successfully demonstrated the advantages of gas lighting. In 1807, lanterns of a new design were installed on Pall Mall and soon conquered all European capitals.

St. Petersburg became the first city in Russia where street lights appeared. On December 4, 1706, on the day of celebrating the victory over the Swedes, on the orders of Peter I, street lamps were hung on the facades of the streets facing the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Tsar and the townspeople liked the innovation, the lanterns began to be lit on all major holidays, and thus the beginning of street lighting in St. Petersburg was laid. In 1718, Tsar Peter I issued a Decree on “lighting the streets of the city of St. Petersburg” (the decree on lighting the Mother See was signed by Empress Anna Ioannovna only in 1730). The design of the first street oil lantern was designed by Jean Baptiste Leblond, an architect and “skilled technician of many different arts, of great importance in France.” In the autumn of 1720, 4 striped beauties, made at the Yamburg glass factory, were exhibited on the Neva embankment near the Peter the Great's Winter Palace. Glass lamps were attached to metal rods on wooden posts with white and blue stripes. Hemp oil burned in them. This is how we got regular street lighting.

In 1723, thanks to the efforts of Chief of Police General Anton Divier, 595 lanterns were lit on the most famous streets of the city. This lighting facility was served by 64 lamplighters. The approach to the matter was scientific. The lanterns were lit from August to April, guided by the “tables of the dark hours” that were sent from the Academy.

St. Petersburg historian I.G. Georgi describes this lighting on the streets as follows: “For this purpose, there are wooden pillars painted blue and white along the streets, each of which on an iron rod supports a spherical lantern, lowered on a block for cleaning and pouring oil...”

St. Petersburg was the first city in Russia and one of the few in Europe where regular street lighting appeared just twenty years after its founding. Oil lanterns turned out to be tenacious - they burned in the city every day for 130 years. Frankly speaking, there was not much light from them. In addition, they tried to splash passers-by with hot drops of oil. “Further, for God’s sake, further from the lantern!” - we read in Gogol’s story Nevsky Prospekt, “and quickly, as quickly as possible, pass by. It’s even luckier if you get away with him pouring stinking oil all over your smart frock coat.”

Lighting the northern capital was a profitable business, and merchants were willing to do it. They received a bonus for each burning lantern and therefore the number of lanterns in the city began to increase. So, by 1794, there were already 3,400 lanterns in the city, much more than in any European capital. Moreover, the St. Petersburg lanterns (in the design of which such famous architects as Rastrelli, Felten, Montferrand took part) were considered the most beautiful in the world.

The lighting was not perfect. At all times there have been complaints about the quality of street lighting. The lights shine dimly, sometimes they don’t light up at all, they are turned off ahead of time. There was even an opinion that lamplighters saved their oil for porridge.

For decades, oil was burned in lanterns. Entrepreneurs realized the profitability of lighting and began to look for new ways to generate income. From ser. 18th century Kerosene began to be used in lanterns. In 1770, the first lantern team of 100 people was created. (recruits), in 1808 she was assigned to the police. In 1819 on Aptekarsky Island. Gas lamps appeared, and in 1835 the St. Petersburg Gas Lighting Society was created. Spirit lamps appeared in 1849. The city was divided between various companies. Of course, it would be reasonable, for example, to replace kerosene lighting with gas lighting everywhere. But this was not profitable for oil companies, and the outskirts of the city continued to be illuminated with kerosene, since it was not profitable for the authorities to spend a lot of money on gas. But for a long time in the evenings, lamplighters with ladders on their shoulders loomed on the city streets, hastily running from lamppost to lamplight.

A textbook on arithmetic has been published in more than one edition, where the problem was given: “A lamplighter lights lamps on a city street, running from one panel to another. The length of the street is a verst three hundred fathoms, the width is twenty fathoms, the distance between adjacent lamps is forty fathoms, the speed of the lamplighter is twenty fathoms per minute. The question is, how long will it take him to complete his work?” (Answer: 64 lamps located on this street can be lit by a lamplighter in 88 minutes.)

But then the summer of 1873 arrived. An emergency announcement was made in a number of metropolitan newspapers that “on July 11, experiments in electric street lighting will be shown to the public along Odesskaya Street, on Peski.”

Recalling this event, one of its eyewitnesses wrote: “... I don’t remember from what sources, probably from newspapers, I learned that on such and such a day, at such and such an hour, somewhere on Peski, they would be shown to the public experiments of electric lighting with Lodygin lamps. I passionately wanted to see this new electric light... Many people walked with us for the same purpose. Soon out of the darkness we found ourselves in some street with bright lighting. In two street lamps, kerosene lamps were replaced by incandescent lamps, which emitted a bright white light.”

A crowd had gathered on a quiet and unattractive Odessa street. Some of those who came took newspapers with them. First, these people approached a kerosene lamp, and then an electric one, and compared the distance at which they could read.

In memory of this event, a memorial plaque was installed at house number 60 on Suvorovsky Avenue.

In 1874, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences awarded A.N. Lodygin the Lomonosov Prize for the invention of the carbon incandescent lamp. However, without receiving support from either the government or city authorities, Lodygin was unable to establish mass production and widely use them for street lighting.

In 1879, 12 electric lights were lit on the new Liteiny Bridge. “Candles” by P.N. Yablochkov were installed on lamps made according to the design of the architect Ts.A. Kavos. “Russian Light,” as electric lights were dubbed, created a sensation in Europe. Later, these legendary lanterns were moved to the current Ostrovsky Square. In 1880, the first electric lamps began to shine in Moscow. Thus, with the help of arc lamps in 1883, on the day of the Holy Coronation of Alexander III, the area around the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was illuminated.

In the same year, a power plant on the river began operation. Moika near the Police Bridge (Siemens and Halske), and on December 30, 32 electric lights illuminated Nevsky Prospekt from Bolshaya Morskaya Street to Fontanka. A year later, electric lighting appeared on the neighboring streets. In 1886-99, 4 power plants were already operating for lighting needs (the Helios society, the plant of the Belgian society, etc.) and 213 similar lamps were burning. By the beginning of the twentieth century. There were about 200 power plants in St. Petersburg. In the 1910s light bulbs with metal filaments appeared (since 1909 - tungsten lamps). On the eve of the First World War, there were 13,950 street lamps in St. Petersburg (3,020 electric, 2,505 kerosene, 8,425 gas). By 1918, the streets were lit only by electric lights. And in 1920, even these few went out.

The streets of Petrograd were plunged into darkness for two whole years, and their lighting was restored only in 1922. Since the beginning of the 90s of the last century, the city began to pay great attention to the artistic lighting of buildings and structures. Traditionally, masterpieces of architectural art, museums, monuments, and administrative buildings are decorated this way all over the world. St. Petersburg is no exception. The Hermitage, the Arch of the General Staff, the building of the Twelve Colleges, the largest St. Petersburg bridges - the Palace, Liteiny, Birzhevoy, Blagoveshchensky (formerly Lieutenant Schmidt, and even earlier Nikolaevsky), Alexander Nevsky... The list goes on. The lighting design of historical monuments, created at a high artistic and technical level, gives them a special sound.

Walking along the embankments at night is an unforgettable sight! Citizens and guests of the city can appreciate the soft light and noble design of lamps on the streets and embankments of evening and night St. Petersburg. And the masterly illumination of the bridges will emphasize their lightness and severity and create a feeling of the integrity of this amazing city, located on islands and dotted with rivers and canals.