Franz Breisig

Franz Breisig (born April 19, 1868 in Elberfeld (today a district of Wuppertal ), † April 12, 1934 in Berlin ) was the chief telegraph engineer in the Reich Post Office and a pioneer of telecommunications technology.

Life

Franz Breisig studied mathematics and physics in Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich and Bonn. At his study locations he became an active member of Catholic student associations in the KV , in Berlin with the Askania (now KStV Askania-Burgundia ), in Heidelberg with the K.St.V. Palatia , in Munich with Saxonia and in Bonn with K.St.V. Arminia . In 1892 he became a scientific assistant in the telegraph engineering office of the Reich Post Office in Berlin. In addition, he was a teacher at the Post and Telegraph School, which had been founded for the training of officials for the higher postal service. In 1903 he received the title of professor as a lecturer at this post and telegraph school.

Until 1918, Breisig was the head telegraph engineer and headed the scientific work of the Telegraph Research Office. Then he was appointed to the Reich Ministry of Post as a Privy Postal Councilor and Lecturing Councilor (later Ministerialrat). After the post and telegraph school closed in 1924, Breisig was given a teaching position at the Technical University of Berlin and was appointed honorary professor. In 1933 he retired.

Breisig had a decisive influence on telecommunications technology. In 1910 he invented an instrument for the comparative measurement of electrical transmission systems (step attenuator - attenuator). In 1921, Breisig coined the term "Vierpol", a specific electrotechnical system that is one of the basics of electrical engineering.

Works

• On the action of light on electrical discharges in various gases ; 1891
• Theoretical telegraphy. With 216 imprinted illustrations. ; Braunschweig Vieweg and son; 1910
• About the importance of the line for the transmission of telephone currents ; Reichsdruckerei Berlin, 1916
• Theoretical telegraphy. An application of Maxwell's electrodynamics to processes in lines and circuits ; Vieweg, Braunschweig, 1924

As co-author:

• Handheld dictionary of electrical telecommunications ; Berlin; Julius Springer, 1929

literature

• Peter Noll: Telecommunications at the TH / TU Berlin (2001)
• Wolfgang Löhr in Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon des KV. 7th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 9). Akadpress, Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-939413-12-7 , p. 27, with further references
• Vitold Belevitch: Summary of the history of circuit theory , Proceedings of the IRE, vol 50, Iss 5, pp. 848-855, May 1962

Web links

• Literature by and about Franz Breisig in the catalog of the German National Library
• P. Noll: Historical personalities in communications engineering at the TH / TU Berlin