And the priests' stories. Outstanding scientist A.S.

Alexander was born in a small Ural village into the family of a priest. The first education in the biography of Alexander Popov was received at a theological school. Then he began to study at the Perm Theological Seminary. He received his higher education at the University of St. Petersburg. Those years in Popov’s biography were difficult. There were not enough funds, so Alexander could not devote all his time to study; he combined his studies with work.

Having become interested in physics, after graduating from university he began teaching in Kronstadt. Then he began to read physics at a technical school. Since 1901, he was a professor at the Electrical Engineering Institute of St. Petersburg, and after that its rector.

But the true passion in the biography of Alexander Stepanovich Popov was experiments. He devoted his free time to the study of electromagnetic oscillations. Using Lodge's receiver, Popov created a radio receiver, which he introduced in April 1895. Beginning in 1897, Alexander Popov conducted radiotelegraphic experiments on ships in his biography. At this time, Rybkin and Troetsky (Popov’s assistants) confirmed the possibility of receiving signals by ear, after which Popov modified the structure of his invention.

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On the night of November 13, 1899, the new coastal defense destroyer General Apraksin lost its course in a blizzard and storm and hit rocks near the island of Gogland. The icebreaker Ermak urgently headed to his aid. The accident was very serious, the ship could not get off the rocks on its own, and Ermak could not help either. It became clear that a very serious rescue operation was required.

An urgent connection with Apraksin was needed. Winter was coming and the ice could crush the new ship. Nicholas II ordered that everything possible be done to save the ship. And then Makarov remembered that there was new equipment that had just been tested by the inventor Alexander Stepanovich Popov.

The Naval Ministry gives the order: “Use Popov’s devices to establish wireless communication between the Apraksin and the mainland.” Two stations are being urgently built. One in Kotka, the other in Gogland. The distance between points is 47 kilometers. The work is led personally by the inventor Popov.

On January 18, radio stations begin their work. A radiogram was transmitted to Gogland that the ice floe with the fishermen was carried away, "Ermak" must go to sea to save them. This was done and 27 people were saved. Popov was very proud that the first radiogram in history helped save people.

Modern radio communications operate on the same principles that were first developed and applied by Alexander Popov. Back then, at the end of the 19th century, electricity, the telephone and the telegraph were still new and available to few. Even scientists did not believe in the existence of a mysterious electromagnetic field. An electromagnetic field is also a type of matter, which is truly impossible to touch, but can be measured with instruments. And so Alexander Stepanovich suggested that humanity use this new type of matter.

When Alexander Popov was born, and this happened on March 4, 1859 in the Ural village of Turinskie Rudniki (now the city of Krasnoturinsk, Sverdlovsk region), there was not a single telegraph station in the Urals. Sasha grew up in a large family of a local priest and was the middle of 7 children.

Turinsky Mines is one of the industrial regions of the Urals. The entire periodic table, one might say, was mined there. There were factories that were modern for those times, steam engines, and graduates of the Mining Institute worked there, that is, there was a layer of technical intelligentsia. Sasha Popov was interested in technology and exact sciences; he especially liked making mechanical toys himself. The boy had the nickname “professor” because he loved to study, could not stand fights, loved solitude, and was shy. One day he was given a book by a French author, “Entertaining Physics,” and he repeated all the experiments that were described there and everything worked out for him.

At the age of 10, Sasha was sent 700 kilometers from home to the Dalmatovsky Monastery to the oldest theological school in the Urals (this is on Iset not far from modern Kamensk-Uralsky). Then he graduates with honors from the Perm Theological Seminary and unexpectedly submits his resignation.

He goes to St. Petersburg to enter the physics and mathematics department of the Imperial University. He is admitted without exams. Popov’s older brother Rafail at that time was already a well-known metropolitan journalist. Alexander lives with him, works part-time at a newspaper, but still has difficulty making ends meet. Already in his first year he conducted his own physical experiments. Scientific interest has been identified - electrical engineering. In 1880, the first specialized electrical exhibition opened in St. Petersburg. Electricity is becoming an extremely fashionable topic.

Third-year student Popov is not just a visitor to the exhibition, he works as an explainer, as the guide was called. Popov joins the Elektrotekhnik society and participates in the lighting of Nevsky Prospect, city gardens and train stations in St. Petersburg. This is good income. He is engaged in tutoring, in particular preparing a girl named Raisa for medical school. Later they will get married. Popov graduates with honors from the university and defends his Ph.D. thesis.

Refusing a tempting place in St. Petersburg, he goes to Kronstadt. A 23-year-old young scientist teaches in a mine officer class and teaches a physics course. This is a special closed world of military sailors. Popov served here for 17 years. Now there is a museum here. All his life, Alexander Popov worked for the benefit of the navy. He soon became an expert on electrical engineering issues for the Marine Committee.

Popov family. There were four children in total, all received an excellent education.

In 1893, Popov was sent to the World Exhibition in Chicago. Popov visited Paris before Chicago and joined the electrical engineering society there. Nikolo Tesla demonstrated his experiments at the exhibition. He lit an electric column of 15 thousand multi-colored lamps. And he did it from a distance. Popov was interested in this.

In Kronstadt he studies the electromagnetic field. After 3 years, he repeats Hertz's experiments. He realized the urgency of developing a wireless alarm system. Scientists around the world are struggling with the task of transmitting telegraphs without wires. The transmitter of um signals has been developed, but the receiver has not. In 1895, Popov developed such a receiver. Popov's genius was that the received signal was registered by a bell and a hammer, which struck the coherer in reverse, and thus the self-registration of the signal brought the coherer to its original state and its conductivity was restored. The device was ready. Scientists conduct experiments first in a mine classroom, then increase the distance and take the device into the garden. Communication works on 64 meters. On April 25, 1895, Popov demonstrated the world's first practical wireless radio communication system at a meeting of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society. A year later, he holds a famous demonstration of his invention between two buildings of St. Petersburg University. The distance between them is 250 meters. When the signal came, everyone realized that this was a new communication system.

The capabilities of the receiver have not yet been fully studied. One day, electrical discharges in the atmosphere were accidentally detected, and then Popov’s lightning detector was created. Other times, the assistants simply checked that the receiver was working properly. Here's the headphone. Each has two wires. We connected two contacts from the telephone to the ends of the coherer and quite unexpectedly it turned out that the operation of the transmitting station could be heard in the headphone. This is how Popov’s radio sounded for the first time. And six months later, all the newspapers will write about the inventor Popov.

For three months the country tensely monitored the rescue of the ship General Apraksin. The Emperor granted Popov a reward of 33 thousand rubles. And the Naval Ministry will decide to install radio stations on all ships of the fleet. The device was then called a “hearing receiver”; it gave an advantage to the Russian fleet.

In the summer of 1900, Popov went to Paris for the World Industrial Exhibition. It is dedicated to the change of centuries and had a special scope. There were 400 physicists alone. 40 Russian scientists came. Popov receives a large gold medal, and his report becomes an event at the Electrical Engineering Congress.

Popov's invention received worldwide recognition. Alexander Stepanovich has become a world celebrity, leading engineers of the world strive to cooperate with him. He is invited to St. Petersburg to become a professor at the Department of Physics at the Electrotechnical Institute. This educational institution of this profile was then the only one in Europe; there were not enough specialists. There is such a powerful group of electrical engineers gathered here. And Popov agreed to head the physics department. He gave the first lectures on the use of radio waves and the design of corresponding equipment.

The family settled in a spacious apartment for teachers. The Popovs lived there until 1949, and then Alexander Stepanovich’s daughter Ekaterina created a museum here.

The year 1905 arrived. The revolution began in January. Red flags are being hung, everyone is on strike. In September of the same year, Popov became the first director of the institute. Meetings are permitted. It was a difficult situation overall; Popov suffered a severe stroke due to nervousness and died without regaining consciousness. This happened on December 31, 1905. Alexander Stepanovich was only 46 years old. There is another version of his death. Then the German Wilhelm Roentgen in Munich discovered x-rays passing through opaque materials, this is what we now call x-rays. And Popov repeated his experiments and created the first X-ray machine himself. And he X-rayed his hands, this and that. It was hard radiation, and then they did not understand its danger to the body at all. Popov met Curie back in 1900 and was very fascinated by the phenomenon of radioactivity, and what did he do? He just carries a piece of radium in his breast pocket!

“I am a Russian person and I have the right to give all my knowledge, all my work only to my Motherland. I am proud that I was born Russian and am happy that a new means of communication has been discovered not abroad, but in Russia” - A.S. Popov.

In the Urals the memory of our great fellow countryman is honored. In the center of Yekaterinburg there is a monument to A.S. Popov. This is a favorite place among students from the radio department of UPI (now it is called the Institute of Radio Electronics and Information Technologies of UrFU). They celebrate Radio Day there on May 7, and in the morning they wash the monument until it shines.

This is their annual ritual. Not only students and teachers gather, but also alumni. In the evening at 22-00 there is a massive procession of the column from UPI along Lenin Avenue to the monument, then a rally and fireworks.

He died in St. Petersburg in 1905, on December 31. Popov Alexander Stepanovich is one of the most famous Russian electrical engineers and physicists. Since 1899, he became an honorary electrical engineer, and since 1901, a state councilor.

Brief biography of Popov Alexander Stepanovich

Besides him, there were six more children in the family. At the age of 10, Alexander Popov was sent to the Dolmatov School. In this educational institution, his older brother taught Latin. In 1871, Popov transferred to the Yekaterinburg Theological School, in the 3rd grade, and by 1873 he graduated after completing the full course in the 1st, highest category. That same year he entered the theological seminary in Perm. In 1877, Alexander Popov successfully passed the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University. The years of study for the future scientist were not easy. He was forced to earn extra money because there was not enough money. During his work, in parallel with his studies, his scientific views were finally formed. In particular, he began to be attracted to issues of electrical engineering and modern physics. In 1882, Alexander Popov graduated from the university with a candidate's degree. He was invited to stay at the university to prepare for professorship in the physics department. In the same year he defended his dissertation “On the principles of dynamo- and magnetoelectric machines with direct current.”

Beginning of scientific activity

The young specialist was very attracted to experimental research in the field of electricity - he entered the Mine Class in Kronstadt as a teacher of electrical engineering, mathematics and physics. There was a well-equipped physics room there. In 1890, Alexander Popov received an invitation to teach science at the Technical School from the Naval Department in Kronstadt. At the same time, from 1889 to 1898, he was the head of the main power station of the Nizhny Novgorod fair. Popov devoted all his free time to experimental activities. The main issue he studied was the properties of electromagnetic oscillations.

Activities from 1901 to 1905

As mentioned above, since 1899, Alexander Popov held the title of Honorary Electrical Engineer and member of the Russian Technical Society. Since 1901, he became a professor of physics at the Electrotechnical Institute under the emperor. In the same year, Popov was awarded the state (civilian) rank of fifth class - state councilor. In 1905, shortly before his death, Popov, by decision of the academic council of the institute, was elected rector. In the same year, the scientist purchased a dacha near the station. Udomlya. His family lived here after his death. The scientist died, as historical information shows, from a stroke. Since 1921, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the scientist's family was placed on "lifelong assistance." This is a short biography of Popov Alexander Stepanovich.

Experimental studies

What was the main achievement for which Alexander Stepanovich Popov became famous? was the result of many years of research work by the scientist. The physicist carried out his experiments on radiotelegraphy since 1897 on ships of the Baltic Fleet. During his stay in Switzerland, the scientist's assistants accidentally noted that when the excitation signal is insufficient, the coherer begins to convert the high-frequency amplitude-modulated signal into a low-frequency one.

As a result, it becomes possible to take it by ear. Taking this into account, Alexander Popov modified the receiver by installing telephone handsets in it instead of a sensitive relay. As a result, in 1901 he received a Russian privilege with priority for a new type of telegraph receiver. Popov's first device was a slightly modified training model of a setup to illustrate Hertz's experiments. At the beginning of 1895, the Russian physicist became interested in the experiments of Lodge, who improved the coherer and designed a receiver, thanks to which it was possible to receive signals at a distance of forty meters. Popov tried to reproduce the technique by creating his own modification of Lodge's device.

Features of the Popov device

Lodge's coherer was presented in the form of a glass tube, which was filled with metal filings capable of sharply - several hundred times - changing its conductivity under the influence of a radio signal. To bring the device to its original position, it was necessary to shake the sawdust - this would disrupt the contact between them. Lodge's coherer was equipped with an automatic drummer that constantly struck the tube. Popov introduced automatic feedback into the circuit. As a result, the relay was triggered by a radio signal and turned on the bell. At the same time, a drummer was launched, which hit the tube with sawdust. When conducting his experiments, Popov used a grounded mast antenna invented by Tesla in 1893.

Benefits of the device

Popov presented his device for the first time in 1895, on April 25, as part of a lecture “On the relationship of metal powder to electric vibration.” The physicist, in his published description of the modified device, noted its undoubted usefulness, primarily for recording perturbations that occurred in the atmosphere and for lecture purposes. The scientist hoped that his device could be used to transmit signals over a distance using fast electrical oscillations, once the source of these waves was discovered. Later (since 1945), the date of Popov’s speech began to be celebrated as Radio Day. The physicist connected his device to a writing coil br. Richard, thus obtaining a device that records electromagnetic atmospheric vibrations. Subsequently, this modification was used by Lachinov, who installed a “lightning detector” at his weather station. Unfortunately, his activities in the Maritime Department imposed certain restrictions on Popov. In this regard, observing the oath of non-disclosure of information, the physicist did not publish new results of his work, since they constituted classified information at that time.

May 5, 2014

Alexander Popov, whose photo will be given below, was born in the Perm province in 1859, on March 4. He died in St. Petersburg in 1905, on December 31. Popov Alexander Stepanovich is one of the most famous Russian electrical engineers and physicists. Since 1899, he became an honorary electrical engineer, and since 1901, a state councilor.

Brief biography of Popov Alexander Stepanovich

Besides him, there were six more children in the family. At the age of 10, Alexander Popov was sent to the Dolmatov School. In this educational institution, his older brother taught Latin. In 1871, Popov transferred to the Yekaterinburg Theological School, in the 3rd grade, and by 1873 he graduated after completing the full course in the 1st, highest category. That same year he entered the theological seminary in Perm. In 1877, Alexander Popov successfully passed the entrance exams to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University. The years of study for the future scientist were not easy. He was forced to earn extra money because there was not enough money. During his work, in parallel with his studies, his scientific views were finally formed. In particular, he began to be attracted to issues of electrical engineering and modern physics. In 1882, Alexander Popov graduated from the university with a candidate's degree. He was invited to stay at the university to prepare for professorship in the physics department. In the same year he defended his dissertation “On the principles of dynamo- and magnetoelectric machines with direct current.”

Beginning of scientific activity

Activities from 1901 to 1905

As mentioned above, since 1899, Alexander Popov held the title of Honorary Electrical Engineer and member of the Russian Technical Society. Since 1901, he became a professor of physics at the Electrotechnical Institute under Emperor Alexander III. In the same year, Popov was awarded the state (civilian) rank of fifth class - state councilor. In 1905, shortly before his death, Popov, by decision of the academic council of the institute, was elected rector. In the same year, the scientist purchased a dacha near the station. Udomlya. His family lived here after his death. The scientist died, as historical information shows, from a stroke. Since 1921, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the scientist's family was placed on "lifelong assistance." This is a short biography of Popov Alexander Stepanovich.

Experimental studies

What was the main achievement for which Alexander Stepanovich Popov became famous? The invention of radio was the result of many years of research work by the scientist. The physicist carried out his experiments on radiotelegraphy since 1897 on ships of the Baltic Fleet. During his stay in Switzerland, the scientist's assistants accidentally noted that when the excitation signal is insufficient, the coherer begins to convert the high-frequency amplitude-modulated signal into a low-frequency one. As a result, it becomes possible to take it by ear. Taking this into account, Alexander Popov modified the receiver by installing telephone handsets in it instead of a sensitive relay. As a result, in 1901 he received a Russian privilege with priority for a new type of telegraph receiver. Popov's first device was a slightly modified training model of a setup to illustrate Hertz's experiments. At the beginning of 1895, the Russian physicist became interested in the experiments of Lodge, who improved the coherer and designed a receiver, thanks to which it was possible to receive signals at a distance of forty meters. Popov tried to reproduce the technique by creating his own modification of Lodge's device.

Features of the Popov device

Benefits of the device

Compatriot - Alexander Stepanovich Popov.

He was born in March 1859, in the Urals. From childhood it was clear that the boy was talented. In 1883 he graduated from the university with flying colors. Upon completion of his studies, he was invited to teach at the Mine Officer Class in Kronstadt.

It was the only educational institution that trained and graduated electricians. In addition to this job option, he had other, more tempting offers, but he still chose Kronstadt.

This choice was made because this institution had a modern physics laboratory and an excellent library.

A contemporary of Alexander Stepanovich, Heinrich Herzen discovered the existence of electromagnetic waves, and also substantiated their relationship with light. Popov was very interested in this discovery.

The Russian scientist undertook a detailed study of these phenomena. The achievement of Alexander Stepanovich is that he saw practical significance in these electromagnetic waves. He told in his lectures that a person cannot receive and feel electromagnetic waves.

It is necessary to invent a device that could do this, and use it to transmit information at a distance. Soon he invented one.

During his research and experiments, Popov also managed to create an antenna and grounding. On May 7, 1895, at a meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society, Alexander Stepanovich presented to the world his creation - radio. May 7 is still celebrated in our country and is considered the “Day of the Creation of Radio”.

The inventor continued to work on his brainchild. A year later, the scientist managed to assemble a complex for wireless signal transmission over a distance of about 250 meters.

In the spring of 1897, Alexander Popov began conducting experiments on the development of wireless signal transmission in the fleet. He created a good level of communication between two ships at a distance of 5 kilometers. During experiments at sea, he made a discovery: electromagnetic waves were reflected from ships. Subsequently, this discovery formed the basis for the development of radar.

Naval officials did not take Popov’s discoveries seriously and did not see much practical meaning in it. But His Majesty chance came to the aid of the scientist in his recognition.

So, in 1899, the battleship Admiral General Apraksin set out on a circumnavigation of the world. Having walked a little from the harbor, he encountered a strong storm and, having lost his course, ended up on underwater rocks near the island of Gogland. Frost set in, the armadillo froze to the stones, and it was very difficult to remove it.

The expedition that set out to save the battleship needed constant communication with headquarters. It was here that the Naval Ministry remembered Alexander Popov.

The scientist was given the task of establishing communication between the rescue group and headquarters. The distance between them was more than 40 kilometers. Previously, it was possible to transmit signals only 30 kilometers. But, despite the difficulties, he coped with the task brilliantly, and communication was established.

A little later, thanks to a timely radio message, the fishermen, carried out to sea on an ice floe, were rescued. This case received wide publicity in the Russian and foreign press. Foreign states tried to lure Alexander Stepanovich to their country, promising mountains of gold, but the scientist did not agree.

Alexander Popov continued to devote himself to science until his death. The talented Russian scientist passed away on January 13, 1906.