En
Ru
Birth of Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Russian Physicist and Electrical Engineer, Inventor of Wireless Electrical Communication (Radio)
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was born on March 4 (16), 1859 in the village of Turyinskiye Rudniki, Perm Governorate (now Krasnoturyinsk, Sverdlovsk Region) in the family of priest Stepan Petrovich Popov (1827-1897), in which he was the seventh child. His father supported the son’s early passion for invention. “His favorite occupation,” wrote Popov’s childhood friend A. Deryabin, “in which I also took part as an assistant, was the construction of various kinds of engines, arranged mostly with the help of flowing water. We built mills on streams with moving wheels, lifting machines, buckets pulling the earth out of the “mines”, sometimes dug two or three yards deep. And in all this “mechanical engineering” he was a great craftsman.”
From 1869 to 1871, Alexander Popov studied at the Dalmatovo Theological School, from 1871 to 1873 – at the Yekaterinburg Seminary School, after which he entered the Perm Theological Seminary. In 1877, he successfully passed the entrance exams to the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated in 1882, having defended his dissertation On the Principles of Magnetic and Dynamoelectric DC Machines. In 1883-1901, he taught physics and electrical engineering at the Mine Officer Class in Kronstadt, in 1890-1900 – at the Navy’s Technical School as well; in the summertime of 1889-1898, he was in charge of the power plant at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. Alexander Popov’s activity during this period was extremely versatile. Professor N. N. Georgiyevsky, who worked as Popov’s assistant, recalled: “By 1889, not a single major issue, one way or another related to physics and especially electrical engineering, was solved in the naval headquarters without the participation of Alexander Stepanovich Popov.”
After the German scientist Heinrich Hertz experimentally proved the existence of electromagnetic waves in 1888, Alexander Stepanovich Popov began working on using Hertz rays to transmit signals on a distance. On April 25 (May 7), 1895, at a meeting of the Physics Department of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, Alexander Popov presented a report On the Relation of Metallic Powders to Electric Oscillations, and demonstrated the world’s first wireless communication system using electromagnetic waves, which provided the basis for modern radio receivers. This day is celebrated annually as Radio Day. In 1897, during experiments on radio telegraphy in the Kronstadt harbor, Alexander Popov reached a radio communication range of 5 km. In the summer of 1901, during the route of the Russian squadron from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, a range of over 100 km was reached.
Although in June 1896 the Italian radio engineer Guglielmo Marconi filed a patent application for the radio equipment designed by him, and then in September held the first public demonstration of its work, transmitting a radio signal over a distance of 3 km, in Russia and abroad, the priority in opening the era of radio was attributed to Alexander Popov. In the patent of the Italian scientist, the principle of operation of the wireless communication system and the scheme of the “device for recording electrical vibrations” were identical to the principle of operation of the devices and the scheme of Alexander Stepanovich Popov, demonstrated on April 25 (May 7), 1895 at a meeting of the Physics Department of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society. In 1900, Alexander Stepanovich Popov was awarded an honorary diploma and a Gold Medal at the 4th World Electrotechnical Congress in Paris, and in 1903, the Berlin International Preliminary Conference on Wireless Telegraphy recognized Alexander Stepanovich’s priority in building the first operational radio line.
In 1901, Alexander Stepanovich Popov was elected professor of physics at the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute, and became its director in 1905. A talented teacher, Popov “devoted all his strength to the education of Russian electrical engineers until his last breath”. Many young specialists who passed his course were appointed to senior positions at the country’s radio stations.
Alexander Stepanovich Popov died from a brain hemorrhage on December 31, 1905 (January 13, 1906) in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Literatorskie mostki of the Volkovo Cemetery.
Lit.: Золотинкина Л. И., Партала М. А., Урвалов В. А. Летопись жизни и деятельности А. С. Попова. СПб., 2008; Мишенков С. Л. А. С. Попов // Большая российская энциклопедия; Попов А.С. – изобретатель радио / СПбГЭТУ ЛЭТИ. Режим доступа: https://etu.ru/ru/muzej/popov-izobretatel-radio/
Based on the Presidential Library's materials:
Головин Г. И. Александр Степанович Попов: [очерк жизни и творчества]. [М.], 1945
А. С. Попов: сборник документов: к 50-летию изобретения радио. [Л.], 1945
Изобретатель радио А. С. Попов: [открытка] / художник Н. Колябин. М., 1950
А. С. Попов – великий русский ученый-изобретатель радио: [открытка] / художник С. Яковлев. М., 1959