Rudolf Goldschmidt

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Rudolf Goldschmidt (born March 19, 1876 in Neubukow ; † October 30, 1950 in London ) was a German electrical engineer , inventor and university professor .

Life

Rudolf Goldschmidt was born in March 1876 as the son of the businessman Emil Goldschmidt and his wife Anna Wolff in the small town of Neubukow in Mecklenburg. After finishing school, he began a commercial apprenticeship. Following his inclinations, he began studying electrical engineering at the TH Charlottenburg and soon moved to the TH Darmstadt to Erasmus Kittler at the faculty for electrical engineering . Goldschmidt was already working on practical uses for electrical engineering during his studies. His first patent dates from 1897. He graduated from the TH Darmstadt with honors in 1898.

In the following decade he worked in England a . a. at Westinghouse . He then returned to Germany and worked at AEG in Berlin. In 1907 he received his doctorate in engineering. at the TH Darmstadt. A time as a private lecturer in Darmstadt followed. In March 1911 Goldschmidt received the title of professor at the TH Darmstadt. A short time later he moved to Berlin with his family.

During the following years he developed the Goldschmidt alternator named after him, also known in German as Goldschmidt's high-frequency telegraph , an optimized design of a machine transmitter which was used by the overseas transmitter Eilvese, among others . The transmitter was used for wireless communication between Germany and the United States of America , the connection being inaugurated in 1914 with a ceremonial exchange of telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Woodrow Wilson .

He was a member of the Colonial Technical Commission of the German Reich, a subdivision of the Colonial Economic Committee responsible for the development and exploitation of the colonies . There he gave a lecture on the problems of wireless telegraphy between the Reich and Africa in early 1911. The problems seemed insurmountable to him at the time. Although experiments could have bridged distances of 6000 km (such as between Germany and Cameroon), these connections are completely unstable. But he also countered pseudoscientific objections:

"In recent times, as can be seen from the last issue of the Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift, assumptions have been made that it is not possible to send telegrams to Africa at all because there was a kind of partition over the Mediterranean Sea that electrically separated Africa from Europe the electric waves when they came to the Mediterranean Sea would be electrically absorbed. In fact, one has already telegraphed over this belt, and I do not think that great difficulties will arise there, if only the forces that are used are great enough. "

From 1911 to 1921 he was head of the company Hochfrequenz-Maschinen AG for wireless telegraphy (HOMAG) in Berlin. In the 1920s Goldschmidt worked as a freelance developer and was dependent on orders from industry. In Berlin he met Albert Einstein , among others , with whom he developed a hearing aid in 1928, which was patented in both names in 1934. Together with Bergmann-Electricitäts-Werke AG in Berlin, he developed the "Bergo-Elektro-Meiselhammer", which was produced from 1925 onwards.

After the National Socialists came to power, he was no longer given any orders as a Jew. After the death of his wife in the autumn of 1933, he prepared to flee to England. In the spring of 1934 Goldschmidt emigrated to England with his sons Ernst, Hellmut and Hans-Rudolf Goldschmidt, from where he maintained his correspondence with Einstein until his death.

Rudolf Goldschmidt also taught as a professor at the Technical University of Berlin . His assistant there was Dr. Emil Mayer , later (from 1931) General Director of the Telefunken company .

With the tone wheel he developed , an early design of a receiver principle known today as a superimposition receiver, the reproduction of modulated undamped vibrations was achieved for the first time, but this has not yet been used in practice with excessive interference.

Goldschmidt, who settled in Birmingham in 1949 and whose house was destroyed by a German bomb in World War II, died of cancer at the age of 74. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery. Goldschmidt had been married to the journalist Hella Gimpel (1883–1933), sister of Bruno Gimpels , since 1905 . The marriage had four children.

literature

  • Walther Killy , Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 4, KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-23163-6 , page 86.
  • "Rudolf Goldschmidt" (entry), in: 100 Jewish personalities from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: a companion to the exhibition in the Max-Samuel-Haus May 22 to November 22, 2003 , Max-Samuel-Haus , Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Culture in Rostock (ed.), Frank Schröder (1958-2004), Axel Attula, Christine Gundlach et al., (= writings from the Max-Samuel-Haus; Vol. 4), Rostock: Weidner, 2003, p. 65seq.
  • Hans Morgenstern: Jewish biographical lexicon. A collection of important personalities of Jewish origin from 1800 onwards. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-0509-8 . Page 290.
  • Christa Wolf and Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt, Darmstadt 1977, p. 63.
  • Roswitta Kattmann: Giants in the moor. The history of the Eilvese radio station and its designer Rudolf Goldschmidt, Hanover 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary in Nature: a weekly journal of science , Volume 166 (1950), p. 977
  2. ↑ http://www.zeno.org/Lueger-1904/A/Telegraph+%5B3%5D
  3. ↑ Transcript of Rudolf Goldschmidt's lecture in: Negotiations of the Colonial-Technical Commission of the Colonial-Economic Committee e. V., Berlin, Unter den Linden 43 , 1/1911, published on April 25, 1911
  4. ↑ Leo Brandt : “Research and Design. Speeches and essays by Leo Brandt, 1930-1962 ”, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, 1962, Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-663-00534-6 , in the chapter“ On the history of technology ”the essay“ About the share of Jewish personalities in the development of the German electrical industry ”, page 642
  5. ^ "Rudolf Goldschmidt" (entry), in: 100 Jewish personalities from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: a companion to the exhibition of the Max-Samuel-Haus May 22 to November 22, 2003 , Max-Samuel-Haus, Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Kultur in Rostock (ed.), Frank Schröder (1958-2004), Axel Attula, Christine Gundlach et al., (= Writings from the Max-Samuel-Haus; Vol. 4), Rostock: Weidner, 2003, p. 65seq ., here p. 65.
personal data
SURNAME Goldschmidt, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German electrical engineer, inventor and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Neubukow
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1950
Place of death London