Frédéric Kastner

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Frédéric Kastner
One of Kastner's pyrophones (copy from 1876) in the Musée historique de Strasbourg

Georges Frédéric Eugène Kastner (also Georg Friedrich Eugen Kastner , born August 10, 1852 in Strasbourg ; † April 6, 1882 in Bonn ) was a physicist and inventor of the pyrophone , an organ-like musical instrument that is stimulated to produce sound by burning gas.

Life

Kastner was the son of the Alsatian sound poet Jean-Georges Kastner and Léonie Amable Alberte born. Boursault . He grew up in Paris and often accompanied his parents on trips to Alsace and Germany. After completing school, he essentially acquired his knowledge of physics as an autodidact , with his mother generously supporting him and setting up his own laboratory. Kastner was particularly interested in electricity, vibrations and gases. The biographer describes on the one hand his melancholy after the death of his father, on the other hand the great commitment with which Kastner approached his projects, often at the expense of health. From the winter of 1876/77 onwards, Kastner became increasingly sicker and sought healing in various European health resorts. The unspecified disease ultimately led to early death in 1882.

Act

In 1868 the mother set up a laboratory for the 16-year-old son in Paris, in which he developed an electrically powered lifting motor and applied for a patent in 1870. The invention does not seem to have been a success in its own right, but Kastner was able to use the developed principles in electrically switched valves in the pyrophone. Kastner's research was interrupted in 1870 by the Franco-Prussian War , in which he supported the French side. B. cared for the wounded and sheltered people who had become homeless during the siege of Strasbourg in their parents' house there.

After the war, Kastner began working on the pyrophone in Paris, was able to present a first essay on it to the Paris Academy of Sciences in early 1873 , and in the same year he was able to send a small model to the world exhibition in Vienna . In the following years Kastner improved the instrument and patented it in several countries. In 1875 he made a sophisticated instrument available to the Royal Institution in London. In the last years of his short life, Kastner tried to market the instrument, which was made difficult by his illness. He was supported by his mother and Henri Dunant . Both continued marketing after Kastner's death.

The physical and chemical basics of the pyrophone had been researched by others in previous years. Kastner's achievement is to have recognized the importance for music and to have implemented it in a functioning instrument.

Works

  • Théorie des vibrations et considérations sur l'électricité . Paris 1873.
  • Le Pyrophone. Flammes Chantantes . 4th edition. Paris 1876.
  • Les flammes chantantes, theory of vibrations et considerations sur l'électricité . Paris 1876 ( archive.org ).

literature

  • Frederic Kastner . In: Nature . No. 26 , July 27, 1882, pp. 304 ( nature.com ).
  • Wilfrid de Fonvielle : Georges Eugène Frédéric Kastner, 1852-1882 . Aux bureaux du journal l'Électricité, Paris 1882.

Web links

Commons : Frédéric Kastner  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Hermann Ludwig von Jan: Johann Georg Kastner, an Alsatian composer, theorist and music researcher - his becoming and working . tape 2 , part 2. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1886, p. 287-327 ( archive.org ).
  2. ^ Henri Dunant: The Pyrophone . In: Popular Science Monthly . Vol. 7, August 1875, pp. 444-453 ( Wikisource ).
personal data
SURNAME Kastner, Frédéric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kastner, Georges Frédéric Eugène (full name); Kastner, Georg Friedrich Eugen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Physicist and inventor of the pyrophone
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Strasbourg
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1882
Place of death Bonn