Carl Auer von Welsbach

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carl Auer von Welsbach

Carl Freiherr Auer von Welsbach (born September 1, 1858 in Vienna ; † August 4, 1929 in Mölbling , Carinthia ) was an Austrian chemist and entrepreneur .

He earned merits as the discoverer of the four chemical elements neodymium , praseodymium , ytterbium and lutetium and as the inventor of the incandescent hood in gas light ("Auerlicht"), the metal filament lamp and the flint ("Auermetall") in the lighter . He founded the Treibacher Industrie AG and the Auer Society in Berlin and is the creator of the Osram brand .

life and work

Museum in Althofen
Auer von Welsbach's laboratory replicated with original equipment and chemicals in the Auer-von-Welsbach-Museum

origin

His father Alois Auer von Welsbach came from a modest background and had learned the printing trade. From 1841 to 1864 the father was director of the kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna. Under his leadership, this became a world-renowned company. Alois invented the natural self-printing , the high-speed press and the automatic copper printing press. Due to his merits, he was raised to the nobility two years after the birth of his son Carl and received the title of Welsbach , which referred to the home of the family, Wels . He recognized the talent of his son Carl early on.

resume

Auer studied chemistry in Vienna and Heidelberg . There, in the laboratory of Professor Robert Wilhelm Bunsen , he began investigating the rare earth metals . After receiving his doctorate in May 1882, he returned to Vienna, where he continued this work. Here he had an equally prominent teacher in Adolf Lieben , in whose institute he began to work. By repeated fractional crystallization in 1885, he was able to break down didymium , which had been considered an element until then, into the elements neodymium and praseodymium .

During his work he observed the glow of the compounds of the rare earths in the flame of the Bunsen burner. If he soaked cotton threads with their salt solutions and burned the dried threads, a framework made of the oxides remained, which shows a strong radiation power. In 1885, Auer invented the incandescent mantle , also known as Auerstrumpf, which significantly improved the gas lighting that was already known at the time, since significantly better light output could be obtained with lower gas consumption . After Auer had optimized the composition (originally magnesium or zirconium, lanthanum and yttrium oxide, then thorium and cerium oxide), the incandescent gas light (called “Auerlicht” at the time) was superior to all light sources known at the time: it was not only significantly brighter than Candle or pine chip , but was also cheaper than other gas lamps or the electric carbon filament lamp . So it was also an economic success. Nevertheless, Auer also dealt with electric light: in 1898 he patented the first usable metal filament lamp. To this end, he developed a process for the production of wires from osmium (patent 1890), which at that time was considered the metal with the highest melting point ( tungsten melts at even higher temperatures).

In 1903 he invented the flint , which is not a brittle stone, but a ductile metal alloy made of cerium and iron , from which chips are lifted off by scraping, usually by the milling ignition wheel, which are hot and self-ignite in air. In 1907 he brought corresponding lighters onto the market, and today's flint lighters are based on Auer's Cereisen . The term flint alludes to the brittle minerals that were used until then, which give sparkling splinters when hit with stone or steel - see also flint , marcasite .

In 1905 Auer discovered  the elements ytterbium and lutetium independently of Georges Urbain .

On March 10, 1906, Carl Auer von Welsbach registered the OSRAM trademark for electric incandescent and arc lamps with the then Imperial Patent Office in Berlin.

Rastenfeld Castle in Mölbling
Welsbach Castle

Family and personal life

In 1899 he married Marie Nimpfer, with whom he had four children.

In 1893, Carl Auer von Welsbach acquired Rastenfeld Castle in Mölbling in Carinthia from the actress Marie Geistinger , along with the Marienhof Villa, in the place of which he had Welsbach Castle built. (He died there in 1929.) After Bunsen's death, he bought his teacher's library. He employed reliable partners such as B. his longtime lawyer Adolf Gallia , who registered his patents worldwide. Auer himself was the personification of a researcher and scholar - a systematic and disciplined worker who was sparing with words and written statements.

It rests in Vienna on the Hietzinger Friedhof (group 19, number 26), where z. B. Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt are also buried.

Honors

Carl Auer von Welsbach on the 20 Schilling banknote (1956)
25 shilling coin (1958)
25 euro coin (2008)

Appreciations

Monument to Carl Auer von Welsbach in Vienna
Grave of Carl Auer von Welsbach in the family vault in the Hietzingen cemetery
  • In front of the (Second) Chemical Institute of the University of Vienna (Währinger Straße 38), a monument designed by Wilhelm Frass for Auer von Welsbach was erected in Boltzmanngasse , today here: Ehrenhaft-Steindler-Platz . On the front it bears the Latin inscription "Plus lucis" (more light), and on the back: His inquiring mind created the gas incandescent light, the electric osmium lamp and the spark-spraying iron from rare earths and metals . During the Second World War , the statue "Torchbearer" at the top of the pillar was melted down to obtain bronze and the same figure was made in stone by Frass in 1954.
  • His portrait was depicted after 1945 on a 25 Schilling silver coin, the 20 Schilling banknote from 1956 and on a 1.50 Schilling postage stamp.
  • The University of Vienna has been offering an Auer von Welsbach scholarship since 2008 .
  • In Vienna Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus (15th district) the former Schönbrunner Vorpark was renamed Auer-Welsbach-Park before 1933 ; until 1992 it belonged to the 14th district.
  • In Vienna- Liesing (23rd district) there has been (since before 1956) in the Atzgersdorf part of the district, not far from the factory founded by Auer (later Osram-Werke, today housing complex Osramgrund), Auer-Welsbach-Gasse , now- Strasse . (A 1930 named Auer-Welsbach-Gasse in Vienna- Simmering , 11th district, near Neugebäudestrasse, has been called Mazellegasse since 1970.)
  • In Graz Puntigam the street on which the gasworks (1960–1978 operated oil splitting plant of the Grazer Stadtwerke ) stood and which leads to the gas pipe footbridge over the Mur was named Auer-von-Welsbach-Gasse.
  • (Carl-) Auer- (von-) Welsbach streets or alleys can also be found in Althofen (Carinthia), Amstetten (Lower Austria), Burghausen (Bavaria, D), Felixdorf (Lower Austria), Gallneukirchen (Upper Austria), Klagenfurt (Carinthia) ), Marchtrenk (Upper Austria), Meiselding (since 1973 part of the municipality Mölbling; Carinthia), Ritzing (Carinthia), Salzburg (Salzburg), Sankt Veit an der Glan (Carinthia), Trier (Rhineland-Palatinate, D), Villach (Carinthia ).
  • Since January 1998, the (federal upper level) high school in the city of Althofen , Carinthia, has been nicknamed Auer von Welsbach, because Carl Auer von Welsbach came to Treibach (-Althofen) in 1898 and bought an industrial plot of land on which the later Treibacher chemical works were founded.
  • Auerstraße has existed in Berlin-Friedrichshain since 1951.
  • In 2010 the large lecture hall I of the Chemical Institute of the University of Vienna was renamed the Carl-Auer-von-Welsbach-Hörsaal.
  • The website of the BORG Auer von Welsbach in Althofen lists numerous awards up to the award of the ring from the Siemens Ring Foundation in 1920.
  • In 1998 the Auer-von-Welsbach Museum was established in Althofen . Gas incandescent street lighting continues to be operated in the old town of Althofen.
  • In his honor, the plant genus is auerodendron from the family of Buckthorn family named (Rhamnaceae).

Works (selection)

  • About the rare earths . In: Monthly magazine for chemistry. An international journal of chemistry. ISSN  1434-4475 , Vol. 5, 1884 (January), pp. 508-522.
  • About the gas incandescent light. Lecture given in the Lower Austrian trade associations . Verlag des Niederösterreichischen Gewerbevereines, Vienna 1886 (from: Wochenschrift des Niederösterreichischen Gewerbevereines 1886)
  • On the history of the invention of the gas incandescent light . Munich 1901 (from: Schilling's Journal for gas lighting and water supply 1901)
  • The decomposition of the didymium into its elements . In: Meeting reports of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna, mathematical and natural science class . Vol. 112, section 2a, pp. 1037-1055
  • Comments on the use of the spark spectra in homogeneity tests . In: Festschrift Adolf Lieben . Winter, Leipzig 1906
  • About the chemical investigation of the residues of radium extraction containing actinium . Alfred Hölder, Vienna 1910 ( reports from the Imperial Radium Commission, Academy of Sciences No. 6, 1910)

literature

  • Eugen Schmahl: Carl Auer von Welsbach. Along with an appendix about Alois Auer von Welsbach by Friedrich Klemm. Oldenbourg, Munich 1952 (= treatises and reports. Deutsches Museum 20.1).
  • Friedrich Klemm  :  Auer von Welsbach, Carl Freiherr von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 432 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Carl Auer von Welsbach. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 35.
  • Kurt Peters : Carl Auer von Welsbach. In: Leaves for the history of technology. 20th issue. Springer, Vienna 1958.
  • Elmayer von Vestenbrugg : More light! An Auer von Welsbach novel . Zsolnay, Hamburg, Vienna 1958.
  • Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer and Wolfgang Müller with the collaboration of Heinz Cassebaum : Lexicon of important chemists . Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1988 ISBN 3-323-00185-0 , p. 20.
  • Carl Freiherr Auer von Welsbach (1858–1929). Symposium on the occasion of the 150th birthday, Vienna, June 4, 2008 . Presented by M. Peter Schuster at the meeting on April 22, 2010. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2011 ISBN 978-3-7001-7059-4 .
  • Ingrid Groß, Gerd Löffler: Carl Freiherr Auer von Welsbach (1858–1929). Inventor, discoverer and entrepreneur . Best Media, Klagenfurt 2012, ISBN 3-902500-15-8 .
  • Roland Adunka: Carl Auer von Welsbach: discoverer - inventor - company founder . Publishing house of the Carinthian State Archives, Klagenfurt 2013, ISBN 978-3-900531-88-1 .
  • Roland Adunka, Mary Virginia Orna: Carl Auer von Welsbach: Chemist, Inventor, Entrepreneur , Springer Briefs in Molecular Science, Springer 2018
  • Georg Steinhauser, Gerd Löffler, Roland Adunka: An undiscovered discovery? In: News from chemistry. 11/2014, pp. 1073-1076.
  • Gerd Löffler :: Carl Auer von Welsbach and his contribution to early radioactivity research and quantum theory . Auer von Welsbach Research Institute (Ed.), Althofen 2015 ISBN 978-3-200-04400-5 .
  • Georg Steinhauser, Roland Adunka, Dieter Heinz, Gerd Löffler, Andreas Musilek: New Forensic Insight into Carl Auer von Welsbach's 1910 Observation of Induced Radioactivity, Theoretical, Experimental and Historical Approaches. In: Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 2016, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 297-318.
  • Jesko Dahlmann: The innovative entrepreneurship in the sense of Schumpeter. Theory and economic history . Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1269-8 , pp. 316–385.
  • Gerd Löffler: Carl Auer von Welsbach (1858-1929) - A Famous Austrian Chemist Whose Services Have Been Forgotten for Modern Physics, doi: 10.13128 / Substantia-404

Web links

Commons : Carl Auer von Welsbach  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Chorherr : Great Austrians. Ueberreuter, 1985
  2. ↑ Electric light bulb with metal threads. (Die Zeit April 20, 1906) ( Memento from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: althofen.at. Auer von Welsbach Museum (PDF; 57 kB).
  3. ^ Members of the previous academies. Karl, Freiherr Auer von Welsbach. In: bbaw.de. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, accessed on February 11, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Rainer Scharf: Brief portraits of the ring bearers , Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt , January 2018 ( online PDF 1.2 MB )
  5. ↑ Note "Plus lucis" originally meant more insight, more scientific knowledge. Auer's popular developments are related to brighter gas light, brighter light bulbs and easier ignition.
  6. ↑ "Statues Hither & Thither" vanderkrogt.net, René & Peter van der Krogt. - Pictures (2016), texts.
  7. ^ Announcement of the scholarship from the University of Vienna ( Memento from April 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ History of the BORG Auer von Welsbach in Althofen In: borg-althofen.at. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  9. ↑ kalender.univie.ac.at
  10. ↑ Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach (1858–1929). History: Dr. C. Auer v. Welsbach In: borg-althofen.at. BORG Althofen.Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  11. ↑ Auer-von-Welsbach-Museum. In: auer-von-welsbach-museum.at. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  12. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-946292-10-4 , doi: 10.3372 / epolist2016
personal data
SURNAME Auer von Welsbach, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Auer von Welsbach, Carl Freiherr
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1929
Place of death Mölbling , Carinthia