Heinrich Daniel Ruhmkorff

Heinrich Daniel Rühmkorff ( born January 15, 1803 in Hannover, † 19 December 1877 in Paris) was a German mechanic and researchers in the field of electrical engineering.

Life

Heinrich Daniel Rühmkorff was born the son of the conductor's post Friedrich Gottlieb Römkorff and his wife Sophie cuckoo. His father was descended from the ancient family of the farmer Hottelner Rühmkorfs, which can be traced back to Hanover to the early 15th century. He spent his formative years in Hanover, worked in Paris and London and settled down in Paris in 1839, where he did not change its name and its pronunciation, but from then wrote Ruhmkorff. ( In French, a " u" pronounced as " ü " - the " German pronounced u" to write " ou ", hence the French spelling / typewriter knows no "ü ").

In 1844, he turned first to a thermo- electric apparatus with significant improvements in 1849 was followed by an apparatus to show the magnetic rotation of the plane of polarization.

His well-known induction machine first appeared at an international industrial exhibition in Paris in 1855. Via such induction apparatus, also called spark coil, Rühmkorff generated from a DC voltage of 15 volts, a pulsating voltage of about 100,000 volts. In 1864 he was in favor of Napoleon III. with the Volta Prize ( 50,000 francs ) excellent for electrical engineering. In 1867 he reached 6 Bunsen elements vigorously popping spark of 40 cm length, which aroused a lot of attention. In the U.S., the invention of the induction coil of Charles Grafton Page was claimed.

Induction coils were used as a voltage generator in the apparatus of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and Guglielmo Marconi's radio equipment in as well as in the model developed by Carl Benz Benz Patent Motor Car No. 1

Rühmkorfflampe

Jules Verne was also inspired by the Ruhmkorff induction apparatus. In some of his novels a portable light source ( the Rühmkorfflampe for example in " Journey to the Center of the Earth" ) is described which is based on a spark coil. Such a lamp described by Jules Verne was actually developed and distributed during the period of Book Publishing by A. Dumas and Dr. Benoit. It was introduced in 1862 and can be found as " Miners Lamp" in a few art museums. Widely used but it was not because it was too expensive and too heavy.

Honors

The Rue Ruhmkorff in Paris and the Rühmkorffstraße in Berlin and Hanover are named after him, as discovered by Eric Walter Elst Asteroid ( 15273 ) Ruhmkorff.