Poul la Cour

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poul la Cour

Poul la Cour (born April 13, 1846 on the Skjärso estate near Ebeltoft , Jutland ; † April 24, 1908 in Askov ; spelling also Paul or La Cour or LaCour ) was a Danish physicist and, as the inventor, one of the most important pioneers of modernity Wind turbines .

Life

Poul la Cour spent his childhood on Djursland , where his technically gifted father was a farmer. He initially wanted to be a priest, but because of his academic performance, he decided to pursue a scientific career. He studied in Copenhagen and with Buys Ballot in Utrecht .

In 1869 he finished his training as a meteorologist, undertook meteorological study trips to Wales and Messina between 1871 and 1872 , visited the meteorological stations in Naples , Rome , Florence and Trieste and became deputy director of the Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen in 1872. One of his tasks was the stationing of meteorological measuring stations in the country. One problem was the fastest possible communication with the measuring stations, which took place via telegraph . La Cour then dealt with telegraphy and invented (at the same time with Lord Rayleigh ) a method with which it was possible that not only one participant could send over a telegraph line, but up to a hundred at the same time. Here he was in competition with Thomas Alva Edison and was probably dubbed the Danish Edison .

Due to his numerous inventions, he neglected his work at the Meteorological Institute and led his family to the brink of financial ruin through the costs of his research.

The director of the adult education center in Askov, Ludwig Schroeder, asked la Cour to teach mathematics and physics at his university. La Cour's wife, Hulda Barfod, was a student at the Askov Adult Education Center in 1867. She was happy that there was a prospect of a change in family living conditions and supported the change in his life.

In 1878, for example, la Cour became a teacher at the adult education center in Askov, a small town between Kolding and Esbjerg about 3 km north of the then Prussian border. The combination of the scientific research and inventiveness of La Cours with the social component of the adult education center was later expressed in the support of the concerns of the rural population through his research.

At the time of la Cours, the big cities were already electrified, while in the countryside there was hardly any access to electrical energy . His main concern was to give the rural population this access.

He assessed electricity as one of the most important future technologies that could simplify work and extend life into the long, dark winter nights, for example for studying.

That is why he researched improving the efficiency of windmills and using them to convert wind energy into electrical energy.

The Poul la Cour Museum in the Askov building where he experimented

In 1891 he got permission to build the first wind turbine on the Askov school grounds. It served as a prototype for rural electrification systems. Conventional windmill blades were used here, although la Cour knew by now that there were better cross-sections. However, the traditional wings were easier to handle and repair in the countryside. He also discovered that high-speed systems with fewer blades are cheaper to generate electricity .

La Cour realized early on that not only the generation but also the storage of electrical energy was an important factor in the success of rural electrification. He considered batteries too expensive and spent his life researching a better alternative, always experimenting with hydrogen , which he used to produce through electrolysis using the electrical energy obtained from the wind.

As a consequence of working with hydrogen, he also developed a special gas lamp for hydrogen gas. From 1885 to 1902 the school grounds were illuminated with these gas lamps. As a result, however, there were deflagrations a few times , after which some of the window panes had to be replaced.

Further inventions were in 1891:

He built a wind tunnel in Askov and (possibly the first) carried out aerodynamic tests in it, which enabled him to further improve the shape of the blades of wind turbines.

Wind turbine based on the principles of la Cours in Vallekilde around 1905

On October 28, 1903, he founded the Society of Wind Electricians (Dansk Vindelektricitetsselskab, DVES) as a platform to support rural electrification. Courses in physical, geometric and economic fundamentals that were relevant for the construction of such a plant were offered. German and Danish were also taught. One of his students was Johannes Juul , who later made a decisive step in the further development of the technology with the development and construction of the Gedser wind turbine (200 kW) in 1957 .

The La Cour Wind Electricians Society was an important reason for the early development of a decentralized supply of electrical energy in Denmark. In the last years of his life, la Cour advised on the development of a centralized electricity network in Denmark.

As a community college teacher, he had direct access to the living conditions of the rural population. He worked all his life to improve their living conditions. Business matters were never important to him, so he didn't get much financial benefit from his inventions. He sold some of his numerous patents for little money to foreign companies on the condition that his inventions could be freely produced and sold in Denmark.

When he died on April 24, 1908, there were 30 rural energy suppliers in Denmark with wind turbines.

The school grounds and the buildings in which Paul la Cour made most of his experiments were bought by a foundation in 1999 in order to honor the life's work of la Cours at this location with a museum .

plant

In his work, La Cour has fundamentally and scientifically researched and presented the basics of the current state of windmill technology. In particular , he was able to test the aerodynamics of the windmill blades in his wind tunnel. At that time, electrical energy was increasingly becoming an important resource for industry. La Cour, who was aware of this, applied the knowledge gained to the conversion of wind energy into electrical energy with the help of windmills.

Publications translated into German:

  • Paul la Cour: Wind power and its application to drive electricity works . Translated by Johannes Kaufmann. Published by M. Heinsius Nachf., Leipzig 1905.
  • Paul la Cour, Jakob Appel: Physics, based on its historical development, presented to wider circles in words and pictures . Translated by G. Siebert. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1905.

Publications in other languages, mainly Danish:

  • Isochronous and Synchronous Movements for Telegraph and Other Lines . Patent No. 203423, Poul la Cour, Filed April 9, 1878, Washington
  • Roue phonique pour la regularization du synchronisme des mouvements . Note by P. la Cour in Comptes Rendus, v. 87, pp. 499-500, September 25, 1878
  • Paul la Cour: The Phonic Wheel, Theory and Its Applications in Science, Technology and Telegraphy. Quandt & Haendel, Leipzig 1880
  • Historisk mathematics. 1881
  • Historisk physics. 1895
  • Forsøgsmøllen. Copenhagen 1900
  • (Children's book about electricity)
  • Editor of the Tidsskrift for vindelektrisitet (magazine for wind electricity), first published in 1904
  • Helge Holst, Poul la Cour: The Triumphs of the Human Spirit. Copenhagen 1904

See also

literature

Web links

  • Poul la Cour Museum. (English, Danish, biography, photos, foundation and museum activities).
personal data
SURNAME La Cour, Poul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cour, Poul la; La Cour, Paul; LaCour, Poul; LaCour, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish physicist and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH near Ebeltoft , Jutland
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1908
Place of death Askov