Gustaf Dalén

Nils Gustaf Dalén ( born November 30, 1869 in Stenstorp; † December 9, 1937 in Lidingö, Stockholm County ) was a Swedish engineer. He received the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics " for his invention of self -acting regulators that are used in combination with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and light buoys ".

Life and work

Nils Gustaf Dalén was born in 1869 in Stenstorp, in the municipality Falköping, as the third of five children of the farmer Anders Johansson and his wife Lovisa Dahlén. His brother Albin later became a well-known ophthalmologist and professor at Karolinska Institutet.

Dalens ingenuity showed itself at an early age, when he constructed a threshing machine on his father's farm, which was powered by an old spinning wheel. He also developed a device to which the fat content of milk could be determined. By this invention, he came into contact with the engineer Gustaf de Laval.

De Laval was impressed by the talent of the young Dalén and convinced him not - as originally planned - dairy farming at the Agricultural College to study, but to complete a technical training. Dalén competed at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and was adopted in 1892. In 1896, he completed his training as an engineer successfully and then spent a year studying mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic of Zurich (now Federal Institute of Technology Zurich ). His teachers included, among other things, Aurel Stodola.

After his return to Göteborg Dalén dedicated a long time of research: He constructed various compressors and pumps, invented an apparatus for pasteurizing and a milking machine before 1901, the technical director of Svenska och carbide acetylene AB took over. Later he moved to Aktiebolaget Gas Accumulator (AGA ), where he was chief engineer in 1906. Shortly before, the company had acquired the patent for the extraction of dissolved acetylene. Dalén took advantage of this invention to design a novel, automatic lighting system for lighthouses ( the Dalén flashing light ) and for the production of new gas reservoir: it filled the container with a mixture of asbestos and diatomaceous earth and took the ethyne so that its explosive properties, which until then an insert had prevented the substance to the operation of lighthouses.

In addition Dalén invented a solar valve which automatically lit the lighthouse at dusk and put him in the morning. AGA lighthouses were able to for a long time - up to a year - to be operated without staff and without maintenance, and contributed to not only improve the safety of navigation, but helped to Sweden's long coastline and large human and material savings. In 1912 the world was first beacon installed after Dalens principle in Blockhusudden on Djurgården in the harbor entrance to Stockholm, as the beacon was electrified 68 years later, one could state that it had never been repaired.

In 1909 Dalén took over the management of AGA.

In a test of the safety of ethyne containers Dalén 1912 seriously injured by an unexpected explosion and lost his eyesight. After he had recovered from his injuries, he continued his research and received, among other things, the contract to equip the Panama Canal with lighthouses.

Later on, he dealt with the improvement of heating technology and invented a stove in 1922, which could heat up to 24 hours on just eight pounds of coal. The AGA cooker was also beyond the borders of Sweden addition to a great success and was in the 1930s in certain social classes of England ( the owners of medium and large country houses) practically as standard (AGA Cooker).

With his wife Elma Persson, the Dalén had married in 1901, he had two sons and two daughters. Their eldest son, Gunnar, was an engineer and later took over the management of AGA by his father; the younger son, Anders, became a physician.

Dalén died in 1937 at the age of 68 years at his mansion in Lidingö. He wears honor today a 26 m high lighthouse on the coast of Södermanland his name.

Awards

Dalén received the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics " for his invention of self -acting regulators that are used in combination with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and light buoys ". The award of the prize for a technical invention was a major exception and is still very unusual. Since Dalén received the award shortly after his blindness, is conjectured to date on the subject of this ceremony: It is possible that the judges were guided by her compassion for the selection of the award winner.