History of the development of electrical engineering. Scientists who contributed to the development of electrical engineering, and their inventions

Electrical engineering is an extremely extensive field of knowledge, which includes everything related to the use of electrical energy. This is the development of circuits, devices, equipment and components, and the study of electromagnetic phenomena, their practical use. Scope of electrical engineering - all areas of our life.

How it all began

The history of the development of electrical engineering is closely connected with mankind throughout the history of its development. People were interested in natural phenomena, which they could not explain. The history of the development of electrical engineering is a constant attempt to repeat what was happening around.

The study lasted for long and long centuries. But only in the seventeenth century the history of the development of electrical engineering began with a real use of the man's acquired knowledge and skills.

Theory

Scientists who have contributed to the development of electrical engineering are thousands and thousands of names, it is impossible to indicate all of them within the framework of this article. But there are individuals whose research has helped make our world as it is now.

Historical data reads: one of the first who drew his attention was that after the amber rubbed against the wool, he would be able to attract objects, was the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus. His experiments he conducted in the seventh century BC. No fundamental conclusions, unfortunately, he could not do. But he carefully recorded all his observations and passed them on to his descendants.

The next name on the conditional list of "electrical scientists and their inventions" appeared only in 1663, when in the city of Magdeburg Otto von Guericke designed a machine that was a ball that could not only attract but also repel objects.

Famous scientists

Subsequently, the beginning of electrical engineering put such famous scientists as:

• Stephen Gray, who conducted experiments on the transmission of electricity from a distance. The result of his research was the conclusion that objects transmit the charge differently.
• Charles Dufet, who put forward a theory about different types of electricity.
• The Dutchman Peter van Mushenbrook. He became famous for the invention of a capacitor.
• Georg Rikhman and Mikhail Lomonosov actively studied the phenomenon.
• Benjamin Franklin. This man remained in history as the inventor of the lightning rod.
• Luigi Galvani.
• Vasily Petrov.
• Charles Coulomb.
• Hans Oersted.
• Alessandro Volta.
• André Amper.
• Michael Faraday and many others.

Power Engineering

Electrical engineering is a science that contains four components, the first and basic of them is the electric power industry. This is the science of generation, transmission and consumption of energy. Humanity could successfully use this technology for its needs only in the 19th century.

Primitive batteries allowed the devices to work only for a while, which did not satisfy the ambitions of scientists. The inventor of the first prototype of the generator was Hungarian Anos Jedlik in 1827. Unfortunately, the scientist has not patented his offspring, and his name was left only in textbooks on history.

Later the dynamo car was modified by Ippolit Pixie. The device is simple: a stator creating a constant magnetic field, and a set of windings.

The history of the development of electrical engineering and energy can not do without mentioning the name of Michael Faraday. It was he who invented the first generator, which made it possible to produce current and constant voltage. Subsequently, the mechanisms were improved by Emile Shterer, Henry Wilde, Zenob Gramm.

D.C

In 1873, an exhibition in Vienna was clearly demonstrated the launch of a pump from a car located more than a kilometer away from it.

Electricity confidently conquered the world. Mankind has become available such previously unknown novelties, such as telegraph, electric motor on cars and ships, lighting cities. Huge dynamo machines are increasingly used to produce electric current on an industrial scale. The first trams and trolleybuses began to appear in the cities. The idea of direct current was massively introduced by the famous scientist Thomas Edison. However, this technology had its drawbacks.

Theoretical electrical engineering in the works of scientists meant covering as many settlements and territories as possible with electricity. But the direct current had an extremely limited range - about two or three kilometers, after which huge losses began. An important factor in the transition to alternating current steel and the dimensions of generating machines, the size of a decent plant.

Nikola Tesla

The founder of the new technology is the Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla. All his life he devoted to studying the possibilities of alternating current, transferring it to a distance. Electrical engineering (for beginners this will be an interesting fact) is built on its basic principles. Today in every house there is one of the creations of a great scientist.

The inventor presented the world with multiphase generators, an asynchronous electric motor, a counter and many other inventions. Over the years of working in the telegraph, telephone companies, Edison's laboratory and subsequently at his enterprises, Tesla has gained immense experience due to the huge number of experiments.

Mankind, unfortunately, did not receive a tenth of the discoveries of the scientist. Owners of oil fields were in every way against the electric revolution and by any means available to them tried to stop its progress.

According to rumors, Nicolas was able to create and stop hurricanes, transmit electricity wirelessly to anywhere in the world, teleported a warship, and even provoked a meteorite fall in Siberia. This man was very extraordinary.

As it turned out later, Nicola was right, betting on alternating current. Electrical engineering (especially for beginners) first of all mentions its principles. He was right that electricity can be supplied for thousands of kilometers, using only wires. In the case of a permanent "colleague," the power plant must be located every two to three kilometers. In addition, they must be constantly serviced.

To date, there is still room for electric current for electric transport - tram, trolley, electric locomotive, engines in industrial plants, batteries, chargers. However, given the development of technology, there is a possibility that the "constant" will soon remain only in the pages of history.

Electromechanics

The second of the sections of electrical engineering, which explains the principle of converting energies from mechanical to electrical and vice versa, is called electromechanics.

The first scientist who showed the world his work on electromechanics was the Swiss scientist Engelbert Arnold, who in 1891 published a paper on the theory and design of windings for machines. Subsequently, the world science was replenished with the results of the studies of Blondel, Widmard, Kostenko, Dreyfus, Tolvinsky, Krug, Park.

In 1942, Hungarian-American Gabriel Cron finally managed to formulate a generalized theory for all electric machines and thus combine the efforts of many researchers over the last century.

The electromechanics enjoyed a stable interest of scientists all over the world, and later such sciences as electrodynamics (studying the connection between electrical and magnetic phenomena), mechanics (studying the motion of bodies and interactions between them), and also thermophysics (theoretical bases of power engineering, thermodynamics, heat and mass exchange ) and others.

The main problems that were studied in the research were the study and development of converters, a rotating magnetic field, a linear current load, the Arnold constant. The main topics are electric and asynchronous machines, various types of transformers.

Postulates of electromechanics

The main three postulates of electromechanics are the laws:

• Faraday's electromagnetic induction ;
• The total current for the magnetic circuit;
• Electromagnetic forces (the same Ampere Law).

As a result of research by electromechanics scientists, it was proved that energy transfer is impossible without losses, all machines can work both in engine mode and as a generator, and also that the rotor and stator fields are always stationary relative to each other.

The basic formulas are the equations:

• Electric machine;
• Balance of the voltage of the windings of the electric machine;
• Electromagnetic moment.

Automatic control systems

The direction inevitably became popular after it became clear that cars with success can replace human labor.

Automatic control - the ability to manipulate the operation of other devices or even entire systems. Control can be made by temperature, speed, movement, angles and speed of movement. Manipulation can be carried out both in full automatic mode, and with the participation of a person.

The first machine of this kind can be considered an aggregate designed by Charles Babidge. With the help of information embedded in punch cards, it was possible to control the pumps with a steam engine.

The first computer was described in the works of the Irish scientist Percy Ludgate, who were introduced to the public in 1909.

Analog computing devices appeared just before the Second World War. Military operations somewhat slowed down the development of this promising industry.

The first prototype of a modern computer was created by the German Konrad Zuse in 1938.

To date, automatic control systems, as intended by their inventors, are successfully replacing people in production, performing the most monotonous and dangerous work.

Electronics

The next stage in the development of electrical engineering has become electronic devices, which are billions of times more accurate than their analogous counterparts.

The most famous first invention is the German Enigma encryption machine. And subsequently - British electronic decoders, with the help of which they tried to solve the tangled codes.

Then there were calculators and computers.

At the current stage of life with electronics bind phones and tablets. And what will be the development of our devices tomorrow, we can only guess. But scientists work day and night only in order to surprise all of us and make the life of the mute interesting and easier.