One of the most significant achievements of the human mind and its forefather A. S. Popov

Taking into account the crucial role of radio in the cultural and political life of the population and for the defense of the country, in order to popularize the achievements of national science and technology in the field of radio and to promote amateur radio among the general population, to establish the annual Radio Day on May 7.

For the past 73 years, the Day of Radio has been celebrated on May 7 every year. On behalf of ua-hosting, we want to congratulate workers of all branches of communication on their professional holiday! Radio communication is a great achievement and its importance for humanity would be overestimated as oh, how difficult.

The path of development of this industry - from the first wireless signal transmission system to modern terrestrial and space radio systems - has more than a century. M. Faraday, who discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction and put forward the hypothesis of the existence of an electromagnetic field, D. -K. Maxwell justified this hypothesis and created the electromagnetic theory of light, the German physicist G. Hertz confirmed it experimentally ... Nevertheless, the celebration of Radio Day was timed to May 7 for good reason, it was on this spring day in 1895 that Alexander S. Popov demonstrated the world's first radio receiver, although only 50 years later, in 1945, the red dates in the calendar officially became one more.

Popova consider their colleagues and engineers, and inventors, and sailors, and military, and media representatives

I would like to remind once again about this amazingly talented scientist who became the forefather of one of the most significant achievements of the human mind - radio. Indefatigably and persistently, the inventor went to embody the idea of ​​wireless communication, which had long been "hovering in the air."

March 16, distant 1859, Turiny mines of Verkhotursk district of the Perm province (now Krasnoturinsk). In the miner's village, in the esteemed family of the priest Popov, a son was born, named Alexander. The father is the rector of the Maximovsk church Stepan Petrovich Popov (1827–1897), the mother is Anna Stepanovna Popova (1830–1903). In the family, the boy was not bored; in addition to him, his parents raised six more children: Raphael, Katerina, Maria, Anna, Augusta, Kapitolina.

Popov senior
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About Popov went a good rumor among the villagers, they were considered a friendly and loving family. Being a well-educated and well-to-do man, Stepan Popov organized and maintained a school for girls, led classes in a mining factory. The wife also took part in the life of the school for girls, taught children needlework.



At home, the abbot Stepan was always welcome to visitors and visitors. My father maintained relations with many graduates of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, engineers, perhaps their conversations, views on life and instilled Alexander's interest in technology. The boy often visited the workshops, considered various devices, mechanisms. Like all inquisitive boys, independently constructed something. In such an atmosphere, Alexander's childhood proceeded.



As was necessary for the children of priests, Alexander received knowledge in the Dalmatovsky (1869−1871) and Yekaterinburg (1871−1873) religious schools, after which he entered the Perm Theological Seminary. A. Popov studied gloriously, stubbornly, in 1877 he brilliantly graduated from the seminary and, for his excellent grades, obtained the right to enter the university. Collecting things, Alexander, along with her sisters Anna and Augusta, went to enroll at St. Petersburg University.

At that time, his elder brother Raphael, a graduate of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, was already living in St. Petersburg. Alexander Popov chose the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, for a good study he received a scholarship for which he lived in the first and third courses, and later, in order to earn money, the young man worked as a tutor.

In 1880, on January 30 to promote the development of electrical engineering, Russian electrical engineering and scientific inventors — among them, P.N. Yablochkov, A.N. Lodygin, V.N. Chikolev - organized in the Russian Technical Society Special Electrotechnical Department. They called him the Sixth Department, since he was 6 in a row formed department of the Imperial Society. The entire Russian electrical engineering community began to gather around the department, not only the pioneers of Russian electrical engineering, but also telegraph workers, professors, and persons in senior positions in government and military institutions. In July of the same year, the first issue of the first domestic electrical magazine "Electricity" was published. The magazine is considered one of the first in the world special electrical publications. Although industrially Russia at that time was a country lagging behind the west, in terms of human resources and the concentration of the great minds of mankind, few people were equal to it. The end of the 19th century can be called the “inventor boom,” in Moscow and St. Petersburg, not only scientists and engineers worked on electrical engineering issues, but also ordinary workers and just amateurs. All of them were united by a common vocation called “ingenuity”: they improved telegraphs, telephones, electric lamps, and galvanic elements. The public needed bread, which later became the magazine "Electricity", a kind of benefit for the period of the birth of electrical engineering.



Theoretical knowledge while studying Popov absorbed like a sponge. In March 1880, the First Electrotechnical Exhibition opened in the Salt Town on the bank of the Fontanka. Alexander Popov was invited as a consultant. The exhibition presented various means of communication, among them the telegraph devices of Schilling, Jacobi, Morse and others. Not in words, but in practice it was possible to become familiar with the devices, to get acquainted with well-known electrical scientists.

As for practice, Popov worked as a fitter in the Electrotechnik Partnership organized in 1880. In a word - the knowledge base was not small. In 1882, he graduated from the university, defended his thesis on the topic "On the principles of dynamo-electric DC machines" and received the diploma of a candidate.



A.S. Popov remained at the university to prepare and receive the academic title of professor. A year later, he was called to teach at the Mine School in Kronstadt. He took the place of a teacher and head of a physical office in the Mine officer class, was the head of practical classes on galvanism, read lectures on higher mathematics. Well-equipped classrooms and laboratories, an excellent library, work with naval officers, a salary of only 100 rubles - created favorable conditions for the incredibly important work of Popov for the next 18 years of life.



Mine School was one of the first electrical engineering educational institutions in Russia. The mine officer class was opened in 1874 in the building of the first naval crew (Kronstadt), after work began on the restructuring and equipment of the auditoriums and premises.
In the conditions of its rapid development, the Russian fleet, more than ever, needed to solve the problem of information exchange, equip the Russian fleet with radio communication — that was the purpose of A.S. Popov.


Electrotechnical office of the Mine School



November 18, 1883 Popov married Raisa Bogdanova Alekseevna. Paradise - the daughter of the attorney, took lessons from Alexander, preparing for admission to the Higher Women's Medical Courses at the Nikolaevsk Military Hospital (later the Women's Medical Institute, First Medical Institute named after academician IP Pavlov).


Alexander Popov, 1883


Raisa Alekseevna Bogdanova

Raisa was born in 1860 in the family of a lawyer living in St. Petersburg. The father did everything to make his daughter an educated woman. At that time, it was not enough to enter the university for a female gymnasium, it was necessary to successfully pass the exams for a high school diploma at a male gymnasium:

Alexey Ivanovich Bogdanov advertised in the newspaper that he was looking for a tutor to prepare for the exam for the certificate of maturity. According to the announcement came a second-year student of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of St. Petersburg University. He began to study with Raisa Alekseevna.

And so began their long history of living together. Three years until 1886, the young family lived separately before graduating from the Raisa Institute, Alexander in Kronstadt, Raisa - in St. Petersburg. After graduation, receiving a silver badge "Woman - Doctor", Paradise moved to her husband in Kronstadt. Here she worked in the Kronstadt Naval Hospital, was engaged in teaching, conducted hygiene and natural science, plus everything worked as a school doctor. Easy to deal with people and kind-hearted people - this was such a sweet girl. On the fragile shoulders of Raisa Alekseevny fell financial responsibility for the family, Alexander spent most of his earnings on research and inventions. She was not only his muse, but also a sponsor of his scientific research. One of the first women innovators, a successful practitioner and a fairly good earning woman, Raisa was also a volunteer at the Pokrovsky Community of Sisters of Mercy hospital, and during the First World War - at the hospital. She received a gold medal "For Diligence" for services.



So little time was spent on quiet family evenings, constantly in work, inventions, no peace from official business. At the family council, it was decided to purchase a plot and at least in summer to have a good rest, away from working troubles.

Accidentally learning about the sale of a plot of forest at Lake Kubycha, near the village of Laykovo, they went there. In the forest was a log house. Magnificent ship pines lit the setting sun. Alexander Stepanovich, an avid fisherman, dreamed of fishing here. It was decided to purchase a manor.

Catch in full enjoy the soothing nature of the Tver province in the family and did not succeed. Soon Alexander Stepanovich fell ill and died suddenly, leaving his wife with 4 children.

But, going back to the years when Popov began his creative activity: research in the field of electrical engineering, magnetism and electromagnetic waves, this is what the scientist lived. In the summer of 1887, Popov developed a method for photometric research, created a photometer for photographing the solar corona.

Working tirelessly, already by 1889, Popov came to the conclusion that electromagnetic waves can be used for wireless communication, using “Hertz rays” or “electric power rays” for signaling at a distance without wires. What they have been stated on public reports. 1889 is considered to be the year when works of A.S. Popova in the field of wireless communications. Two years before, 2 articles by Hertz were published, they dealt with confirming the validity of Maxwell’s theory and the results of Hertz’s experiments.

In 1893 A.S. Popov was invited to the World Exhibition in Chicago, visited New York and San Francisco, and on the way back visited Berlin, London and Paris. I managed to become a member of the French Physical Society. He was incredibly impressed by the achievements of the American inventor N. Tesla. Returning home, Popov gave lectures in Kronstadt - on the electrical department of the World Exhibition and in St. Petersburg - on I. Gray's “teleautograph”.

Popov continued to work on the problem of creating an instrument (like many other world scientists) capable of detecting the presence of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation, this was his “obsession”. May 7, 1895. The meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society. Alexander Popov prepared a report and demonstrated the world's first radio receiver, a device that could receive a sequence of “short and long signals” - to transmit elements of Morse code. This day went down in history as the birthday of the radio. A.S. Popov:

In conclusion, I can express the hope that, with further improvement, my device can be applied to transmitting signals at a distance with the help of fast electrical oscillations, as soon as a source of such oscillations with sufficient energy is found.

The “radio conductor” of the French scientist Branly, improved by the English physicist O. Lodge, the coherer, did not provide the ability to receive a sequence of signals transmitted by electromagnetic waves. Popov invented a new scheme for automatically restoring the sensitivity of the coherer, which solved the problem of providing wireless communications. He switched on a relay with a coherer, which provided for the connection of an electric bell: the hammer of the actuating device hit the tube, thereby shaking the sawdust, restored the resistance of the coherer after receiving each sending of damped electromagnetic oscillations. In the summer of 1896, at the meeting of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society, Popov transmitted the first radiogram in the world to a distance of 250 m, later the range of wireless communication was increased to 5 km.



A. S. Popov was a very modest man and incredibly loyal to Russia. Perhaps this kind of education in part did not allow him to defend his rights to the invention of the radio, and partly did not allow the atmosphere of secrecy created around his invention. Let's not forget that Popov worked as a teacher in a military institution, and the military understood wonderfully that the creation of wireless telegraph and communication bears a great advantage militarily. The Maritime Office sponsored the works of Popov, but the amount was allocated a ridiculous total of 900 rubles. The Americans offered Alexander 30 thousand rubles (33 million in terms of) as payment for moving to the USA with his family. He refused.

In 1899, the scientist created a receiver for receiving signals by ear using a handset. All this at times simplified the reception scheme, and the range of radio communications increased. In 1900, communication was possible in the Baltic Sea at a distance of more than 45 km between the islands of Gogland and Kutsalo. After that, the wireless telegraph became the main means of communication on combat ships.



In March 1901, A.S. Popov left the Mine School and took the position of an ordinary professor of physics at ETI. Alexander developed a number of courses in physics, created a scientific laboratory. In 1905, Alexander Stepanovich gave many lectures on wireless telegraphy, he was invited to give reports, he trained engineers (ETI graduates), and oversaw the issues of equipping the fleet with wireless telegraphy equipment.

In the autumn of 1905, after the revolutionary wave, higher education gained autonomy, the Council of ETI elected Popov as director.

On October 20, a red flag appeared in the window of the student dormitory of the institute with the words: “Long live a democratic republic.” A series of calls to the Ministry of the Interior followed. After one of these conversations in the 47th year of his life on January 13, 1906, Alexander Stepanovich Popov died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage.

He was buried at the Volkov cemetery in St. Petersburg.

The scientific feat of Alexander Stepanovich Popov is immortal, the inexhaustible legacy left by him to humanity



He was the one who first invented the coherer radio-telegraph receiver, the first spark radio-telegraph system, the first device for recording electromagnetic radiation of atmospheric origin — a lightning arrester, the first detector radio receiver with reception of telegraphic signals by ear, the first crystalline point diode, the first radio telephone system. He found the opportunity and designed the devices that brought the idea of ​​wireless communication to life, was able to amplify weak signals using a relay, invented a receiving antenna and grounding. The world's first line of radio communications at sea is also an achievement of this great human mind.

Why is it often that the opening of the radio is not attributed to A. S. Popov? Marconi, Germans, Italians, Americans ... The idea of ​​radio was in the air, there were test transmissions of messages over short distances.


Marconi

The main competitor is Italian Marconi. Anglo-Italian Popov, Marconi provided his receiver scheme on September 2, 1896, he managed to convey a message to a distance of 3 km, all this caused a stir. Marconi himself was a person already known in Europe and, unlike the humble Popov, he counted on the golden mountains thanks to his invention. He founded a commercial organization for the introduction of radio and made the first transatlantic transmission, which many scientists considered impossible because of the curvature of the earth's surface.

Why did chronologically the previously claimed device of Popov (May 7, 1895) did not receive such a resonance as Marconi's invention? One of the reasons can be considered the "neck of secrecy." The military department not only sought to classify possession of such technology, but only 3 years after Popov’s report submitted an order for the manufacture of such a device in the amount of everything! 3 pieces Only 3 - and in Europe a real boom began at that time, radio communications were already swiftly conquering the entire continent. So from the pioneers we became one of.

For the first time, Radio Day was celebrated in the USSR in 1925, the official status of the holiday was received much later - in 1945. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the invention of A.Popov, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution on the establishment on May 7 of the annual holiday "Day of Radio". Let's not forget our discoverers, what was Alexander Popov. Happy friends!

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