Robert von Lieben ( German: Robert von Lieben ; September 5, 1878 , Vienna - February 20, 1913 , Vienna ) - Austrian entrepreneur, physical engineer, inventor. Lieben invented a gas-filled amplifying triode with an oxide cathode - the forerunner of a thyratron . The so-called “Lieben lamp” of 1912 was the first full-fledged amplifying lamp with a control grid [2] . Already after the death of the inventor, the “Lieben lamp” was used in the world's first undamped oscillator [3] . According to Rainer tsur Linde, the work of Lieben cannot be called an invention in full measure: Lieben only brought together and improved the already known inventions of de Forest , Fleming and Venelt [4] .
| Robert von Lieben | |
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| Robert von Lieben | |
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| Scientific field | electrical engineering , physics |
| Place of work | own enterprises |
| Alma mater | University of Gottingen |
| supervisor | Walter Nernst |
| Known as | inventor of the "Lieben lamp" |
Biography
Robert von Lieben was born in 1878 in a prosperous Jewish family from the banking clan Gompertsev-Libenov-Todesko, the nephew of organic chemist Adolf Lieben . Father Leopold von Lieben, a successful businessman and banker, presided over the Vienna Stock Exchange. Mother, Anna von Lieben (1847-1900) was the daughter of banker Eduard von Todesko and Sofia Gomperts from the Gompertsev banking house. Anna von Lieben's chronic pain, mental illness, and drug addiction , described by Sigmund Freud under the assumed name of "patient Cecilia M.," did not stop her from raising five children. Of these, only the fourth-born Robert became famous. The daughter of his younger sister Henrietta, Maria-Louise von Motezicki (1906-1996), became a famous artist [5] . The family lived in their own palazzo on Kerntnerstrasse . Neurosis and mental imbalance were characteristic of all Liben and Todesco - both on the paternal and maternal lines [6] .
After graduating from a real school, Lieben did not take an exam for a certificate of maturity , but got a job at the Siemens and Schukkert electrical engineering factory in Nuremberg . Then he volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian cavalry , but the service was short-lived: Lieben, falling from a horse, received serious injuries and was expelled for health reasons. After a relative recovery (he never managed to fully recover), Lieben attended the classes of Franz Exner at the University of Vienna and Walter Nernst at the University of Gottingen . Working in the Nernst laboratory, Lieben built an apparatus for photographing human eyes, an electrolytic phonograph, and invented the electromechanical transmission for a car [7] [8] .
Returning to Vienna, Lieben founded a private physics and technology laboratory and studied X-ray radiation for several years, and then focused on the practical issues of telephony . Understanding that the range of telephone communication is limited by losses in the line, Lieben set himself the goal - to develop an audio frequency amplifier . In 1906, Lieben patented a "cathode-beam relay" with magnetic beam deflection. Then he abandoned magnetic control in favor of electrostatic [9] . With the help of Eugen Reisz and Sigmund Straub, Lieben developed and in 1910 patented the first electrostatic triode with a hot oxide cathode - the so-called “Lieben lamp” or “ Lieben-Reisz Valve” ) [10] . Also, like de Forest , Lieben believed that the conductivity of the triode is provided by ion currents - therefore, Lieben did not try to achieve a high vacuum in the lamp balloon, but, on the contrary, injected droplets of mercury into the balloon [3] . The cathode of the “Lieben lamp” was built on the ideas of Arthur Venelt , who first described the emission properties of oxides [11] . Unlike the “ audion ” de Forest, which was initially used as a detector (the first amplifier on the “audion” was built only in 1911), the “Lieben lamp” was designed from the very beginning to amplify the voltage [12] and was actually the first operable amplifying lamp [ 2] .
In 1912, Lieben organized a radio engineering consortium with the participation of Siemens, AEG , Telefunken and Felten & Guillaume. In 1913, Alexander Meissner built a signal generator on the “Lieben lamp” [13] . In the same year, Meisner demonstrated a Lieben lamp radio transmitter with an output power of 12 W on a wavelength of 600 m, and conducted a pilot transmission over the telephone distance of 36 km [3] . Lieben's premature death in February 1913, and then World War I interrupted the development of this area of radio engineering. The first production lamps of Lieben were released only in 1926 [13] .
Streets in Vienna [9] , Berlin [14] ( German Liebenstrasse ) and Amstetten [15] ( German Robert-Lieben-strasse ) are named after Lieben . Lieben is depicted on a 1936 Austrian postage stamp (No. 636 from the Michel catalog , artists Wilhelm Dachauer and Ferdinand Lorber) [16] . The memorial plaque to Lieben on his street in Vienna was destroyed after the Anschluss [9] .
Main publications
- Lieben, R. Zur Polarisation der Röntgenstrahlen // Physikalische Zeitschrift. - 1903. - T. 4 .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 131438522 // General Normative Control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ 1 2 Linde, 1995 , p. 3.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Okamura, 1994 , p. 100.
- ↑ Linde, 1995 , p. five.
- ↑ The history of the Liben-Todesco family and its relationship with Freud is described in detail in Lloyd, J. The Undiscovered Expressionist: A Life of Marie-Louise Von Motesiczky. - Yale University Press, 2007 .-- 288 p. - ISBN 9780300121544 . and in all of Freud’s biographies. Anna von Lieben (Cecilia M.) was Freud's first regular patient.
- ↑ Ferris, P. Sigmund Freud. - M .: Potpourri, 2001 .-- T. 9854385264 .-- 448 p. - ISBN 9854385264 . , ch. ten.
- ↑ Biographien österreichicher Physiker, 2005 , p. 76.
- ↑ Okamura, 1994 , p. 20: A few years later, Nernst studied another “father of vacuum tubes” - Irving Langmuir ..
- ↑ 1 2 3 Biographien österreichicher Physiker, 2005 , p. 77.
- ↑ Okamura, 1994 , p. 20.
- ↑ Linde, 1995 , p. four.
- ↑ Okamura, 1994 , p. 21.
- ↑ 1 2 Okamura, 1994 , p. 42.
- ↑ Liebenstraße . Kauperts. Date of treatment May 14, 2012. Archived on September 21, 2012.
- ↑ Robert-Lieben-Straße . Date of treatment May 14, 2012.
- ↑ Stamps - Briefmarken Austria . Radiomuseum.org. Date of treatment May 14, 2012. Archived on September 21, 2012.
Sources
- Robert von Lieben // Biografisches Handbuch österreichischer Physiker und Physikerinnen anlässlich einer Ausstellung des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs (German) / Redaktion und Layout: Michaela Follner. - Wien: Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, 2005 .-- Vol. 1 (Angetter - Martischnig). - P. 76-78. - 102 p.
- Linde, R. Build Your Own Af Valve Amplifiers: Circuits for Hi-Fi and Musical Instruments . - Elektor International Media, 1995 .-- 252 p. - ISBN 9780905705392 .
- Sōgo Okamura. History of electron tubes . - Tokyo: Ohmsha Ltd. / IOS Press, 1994 .-- 233 p. - ISBN 9789051991451 .