Prokop Diviš

Prokop Divis ( original form of the name: Václav Divíšek, Latinized: Procopius Divisch, German Prokop Diwisch, in the physikalgeschichtlichen literature Prokop Devic ) ( born 26 March 1698 in Helvíkovice, † December 25, 1765 in Přímětice near Znojmo ), was a Czech Premonstratensian Canons, scholar and inventor of the lightning rod.

Life

Born in Bohemia, then acting in South Moravia Prokop Divis attended the Jesuit Latin school in Znojmo and studied since 1720 in the Premonstratensian monastery Bruck philosophy. In 1725 he was ordained a deacon and in 1726 he was ordained priest. He then studied theology. He graduated in 1734 from the University of Salzburg. Back in Louka, he was there to 1742 and Prior took a year before the monastery parish in Přímětice, where he worked until his death as a pastor.

Since the 1740s Divis led his experiments with electricity. As a flash to Professor Georg Wilhelm Rich man killed with his thunderstorms electrical experiments in Saint Petersburg on 26 July 1753 Prokop Divis sent the Academy of Sciences in Petersburg a short Latin treatise on atmospheric electricity with consideration of the tragic incident. The treatise is, however, arrived too late and the Divis of long-awaited and ambitious chased appointment as a member of the Academy of Sciences is never done.

His preferences were natural science, physics, and especially the doctrine of electricity. He examined the effect of electricity on plants, also tried to cure by means of electricity. Divis was with scholars and theologians in constant contact. He corresponded with the Prague Physics Professor Jan Antonín Scrinci, the mathematician Leonhard Euler, and the Württemberg Protestant theologian Johann Ludwig Fricker and Friedrich Christoph Oetinger.

Inventions

• Denis d'or ( "Golden Dionysius ", " Golden Diwisch "), a unindentifizierbares tipped with 790 Strings electrostatic phones musical instrument that should mimic wind and string instruments. Just for fun, could the player an electric shock suddenly.
• Lightning rod, Divis built this in 1754 on his rectory in Přímětice; the lightning rod, however, was torn down in 1758 by the farmers, as they blamed him for the then occurring drought.

Works

1755 took Divis with his treatise Deductio theoretica electrico de igne in a competition on electricity in part, at the Johann Albrecht Euler, Leonhard Euler's son, received the award. Since Divišs work " Magia naturalis " was rejected on the electricity from the censorship in Vienna, he had it from the Lord Berger Special Superintendent Friedrich Christoph Oetinger under the title Procopii Divisch Theologiae Doctoris & Pastoris to Prendiz bey Znojmo in Moravia long demanded theory of meteorological Electricite 1765 published in Tübingen.

Scientific treatises

• Alpha et Omega. Seu principium, et finis Duo bus tractatibus [ ... ] constans, 1735
• Deductio theoretica electrico de igne, 1755
• Long demanded theory of meteorological Electricite, 1765
• Descriptio machinae meteorologicae
• Reflections Procopii Divisch sanctae scripturae Doctoris canonici Praemonstratensis super infeliciter tentatum experimentum meteorologicum a domino professore Rich Manno Peterburgensi the 26th julii 1753.