Ernst Werndl

Ernst Werndl (born November 2, 1886 in Steyr ; † December 7, 1962 in Wartberg ob der Aist ) was an Austrian engineer and inventor . His inventions concerned both technical processes and the recording of sound and sound films . During his several years in the USA after his studies, he was among other things the assistant to Thomas Alva Edison . At Siemens in Berlin he was involved in the development of one of the first sound film machines. Ernst Werndl was a nephew of the Steyr industrialist Josef Werndl .

Life

He graduated from the Stiftsgymnasium Kremsmünster and the Realschule in Steyr, where he graduated in 1904. He then studied mechanical and electrical engineering for three years at the Technical University of Vienna (TU) and in 1907 went on a study trip to North America. Good relationships and expertise gave him the opportunity to become an assistant to Thomas Alva Edison and Ernest Fox Nichols at Columbia University . He also worked for Professors Pierce and Mihajlo Pupin and Lee de Forest . In 1910 Werndl returned to Vienna, where he lectured in electrical engineering at the Technical University .

Werndl lost an eye in an explosion before the First World War . In the said war, he was among other things deployed as commander of the Brusarci radio station in Bulgaria . Werndl also tried twice to gain a foothold in his uncle's Steyr works , but turned out to be unsuitable for regular work.

In 1938 Werndl went to Telefunken , where he worked as a development engineer. In 1946 he became production manager at the US occupation radio station Rot-Weiß-Rot in Salzburg . At the beginning of the 1950s, Werndl went back to the United States, where he is said to have worked in nuclear tests in New Mexico until shortly before the end of his life .

Ernst Werndl died on December 7, 1962 in the Schloss Haus retirement home in Wartberg ob der Aist in the Mühlviertel region . His estate, which among other things contains diaries - from 1908 to 1954 in 36 volumes - is kept in the Upper Austrian Provincial Archives.

Act

Ernst Werndl dedicated his life to inventiveness. For many years he did not have a regular job - in the Steyr works, on the other hand, he did not want to be subordinate to a regular workflow. At times he only made a living from what his inventions brought in. He was able to apply some to the companies that employed him early on.

Ernst Werndl registered his first patent at the patent office in Vienna in 1910: an "electrically controlled valve" . The following inventions included one for aircraft control that was purchased by the US government. Several inventions also concern film or related fields. On February 16, 1914, a few months after he became aware of the " Lieben'sche Tube " during a lecture by Eugen Reiss in Berlin , he noted in his diary the principle of optical sound recording, which could be done "by means of light rays on a cinematograph film" . As can be seen in other diary entries, he pursued this idea further and also brought the selenium cell into play. After all, he worked at Siemens on the development of one of the first sound film machines.

Ernst Werndl's other inventions for sound film in 1919 were a “microphonograph” for recording long phonograph recordings, a device to prevent flicker (1920), an idea for a stereo cinema (1921), a paper sound film that could be projected epidiascopically for domestic use (1932) and ideas on color film (1933). In Austria he patented a “contact apparatus for musical instruments with magnet-electronic sound generation” in 1932 and, in 1936, together with Robert Pollak-Rudin, a “method for generating tones or sounds by photoelectric means” and a “method for generating sound, especially for electrical musical instruments”. From 1932 to around 1934 Werndl worked in Vienna for the piano manufacturer Rudolf Stelzhammer on his electromechanical organ "Magneton", of which only a single test specimen was built. The instrument received first prize at the eleventh "international exhibition of inventors" in London in 1935.

Remarks

1. ↑ Pierce 'first name is not mentioned in the literature, possibly George Pierce (1866-1935) is meant.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Wilhelm Formann 1966, p. 55.
3. ^ Upper Austrian Provincial Archives: Ernst Werndl's estate , accessed on May 25, 2007

literature

• Wilhelm Formann: Austrian pioneers of cinematography. Bergland, Vienna 1966, pp. 54–57.

• Richard Kutschera: Ernst Werndl, universal genius from Steyr. Linz 1969.
• Richard Kutschera: Technician - Poet - Philosopher. An Upper Austrian was Edison's assistant - Ernst Werndl. in: Linzer Volksblatt. Linz 1964, no.118.
• Peter Donhauser: From the spirit of research and old = Viennese workman work . In: Blätter für Technikgeschichte, Volume 71, Vienna 2009, pp. 151ff.