Detection and study of the actions of electric current. "The Huge Bulky Battery" by VV Petrov

The first experiments with an electric current could not but lead to the discovery of some of its inherent properties. Therefore, the period under consideration in the history of electricity is characterized mainly by the discovery and study of various actions of electric current. Studies of electric current, made on a large scale in the first years of the nineteenth century, led to the discovery of chemical, thermal, light and magnetic actions.

In 1800, shortly after receiving the news of the invention of the voltaic column, members of the Royal Society of London Anthony Carlyle and William Nicholson performed a series of experiments with a volt pole that led them to discover a new phenomenon: when passing a current through water, gas bubbles took place; Having studied the gases that were released, they correctly established that they are oxygen and hydrogen. Thus, for the first time electrolysis of water was carried out.

Soon after the publication of the works of A. Carlyle and V. Nicholson (July 1800) appeared in the German scientific journal "Annalen der Physik" an article by the German physicist Johann V. Ritter, who also carried out the decomposition of water by electric current. After the discovery of the action of the current on water, a number of scientists became interested in the question of how the current would flow through other liquids. In the same 1800, the Dutch chemist William Kreikschenk, passing current through a solution of common salt, received on the negative pole caustic soda, unaware that there was a secondary reaction: sodium chloride decomposed on Na and C1, and sodium, greedily joining with water, Formed caustic soda.

These experiments initiated the investigation of chemical actions of galvanic current, which subsequently received important practical applications.

The thermal effects of the current were detected in the incandescence of thin metallic conductors and ignition by means of sparks of highly flammable substances. Light phenomena were observed in the form of sparks of different length and brightness.

In 1802 Italian physicist Giovanni D. Romagnosi discovered that an electric current flowing through a conductor causes a deflection of a freely rotating magnetic needle converging near this conductor. However, at that time, in the first years of the study of electric current, the phenomenon discovered by Romagnosi, which, as subsequently proved to be of great importance, was not properly evaluated. Only later, in 1820, when the science of electricity reached a higher level, the magnetic action of the current, described by the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ereted (1777-1851), was the subject of a thorough and comprehensive study.

Among the numerous studies of the phenomena of electric current produced in the first years of the post-construction of the voltaic column, the most outstanding were the works of the first Russian electrical engineering, the professor of physics of the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, Academician Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov (1761 - 1834), because in them for the first time Shown in the proven possibility of practical applications of electricity

A truly tragic fate befell this outstanding scientist who, in the words of the former president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Academician SI Vavilov, according to the significance of his works, "directly follows MV Lomonosov." What merit was needed for the son of a modest parish priest in the city of Oboyan (Kursk province) in order to be awarded the title of academician of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a considerable part of whose members were of noble origin, and many were foreigners.

VV Petrov was not only an outstanding physicist and chemist; But also a brilliant teacher, the founder of the first major physical cabinet of "the finest in the whole Russian Empire."

It was a modest and tireless worker: no one knows how many sleepless nights he spent on the study of "luminiferous" electrical phenomena, opening an electric arc to a series of regularities of an electric discharge in a vacuum.

It is difficult to imagine the conditions under which V. Petrov lived and worked, especially in the last 25 years of his life. This was a period of violent reaction, when the tsarist officials took up arms against science and education, not without reason, seeing in them a threat to autocracy.

Defender of all advanced and progressive, tireless fighter for the education of the Russian people, VV Petrov openly opposed the dominance of foreigners in the Academy of Sciences and the leadership of the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Sciences, demanded the allocation of funds for equipping the physical cabinet with the latest equipment, which was successfully used by the largest European Physicists. All this causes hostility from official circles. In protest Petrov demonstratively refuses to participate in the funeral of Emperor Alexander I.

The conflict is exacerbated, and the honored scientist is suspended from the management of the physical cabinet and is soon dismissed from the Medico-Surgical Academy, whose professor he was about 40 years old. After the death of VV Petrov everything is done to ensure that his name is forgotten.

And it succeeded. A whole generation of Russian physicists for half a century (1834-1886) knew nothing about their outstanding compatriot.

Only a happy occasion returned the second life to the labors of Petrov. In 1886 a student of St. Petersburg University A. Gershun (later a well-known expert in the field of optical instruments), analyzing old books in the Vilnius library, was surprised to find Petrov's main work, "The News of Galvani-Volta Experiments." He learns about the outstanding discoveries of Petrov, returns to Petersburg and reports his discovery to the metropolitan physicists.

The book aroused great interest. Prominent physicists present reports on VV Petrov's contribution to domestic electrical engineering, in 1887, in the journal "Electricity" appears the first article on the forgotten Russian electrical engineering. Only in 1915, they found it difficult to find the abandoned grave of V. V. Petrov at the Smolensk cemetery. Let's note, by the way, that Volta's ashes are in a monumental sarcophagus on which the bust of the scientist is mounted, and the sarcophagus is in the mausoleum. Comments, as they say, are superfluous. Only in Soviet times, more complete studies of VV Petrov's works were carried out.

In his works on electricity, Petrov collected extensive experimental material, which he was thoroughly analyzed. Petrov deeply understood the significance of the experiment for a comprehensive study of the phenomena of nature ..

Being well acquainted with the experiments carried out with a volt pole both in Russia and abroad, Petrov came to the correct conclusion that the most complete and comprehensive study of galvanic phenomena is possible only if a large battery is created, i.e. According to modern terminology - high voltage current source. Therefore, he wants the leadership of the Medico-Surgical Academy to allocate funds for building "such a huge amount of battery that it could be more reliable to produce such new experiments", which none of the physicists did.

In April 1802 the battery of VV Petrov, consisting of 4200 copper in zinc circles or 2,100 copper-zinc elements (Petrov called it "a huge battery") was ready. It was located in a large wooden box, divided in length into four compartments. The walls of the box and dividing partitions were covered with wax lacquer. The total length of the galvanic battery Petrov was 12 m - it was the world's largest source of electric current.

As shown by modern experimental studies with a model of the Petrov battery, the electromotive force of this battery was 1700 V. The short-circuit current of the battery did not exceed 0.1-0.2 A. VV Petrov first produced, as he pointed out, already known experiments of other physicists , And then tried to produce and such experiments, "... of which I had not before ... no news."

Petrov described his various experiments in detail in the book Izvestiya o galvanic-voltaist experiments, which was published in St. Petersburg in 1803. This was the first book in Russian devoted to the study of the phenomena of electric current.

And abroad, not only before the publication of the book of Petrov, but for the next two decades no such original work appeared, in which this new field of science would be so fully covered.

Veselovsky O. N. Shneberg A. Ya "Essays on the history of electrical engineering"