Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov

Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov

Vasily Vladimirovich Petrow ( Russian Василий Владимирович Петров ; * 1761 in Oboyan ; † July 22, 1834 in Saint Petersburg ) was a Russian physicist and chemist.

Petrov was the son of a priest, went to a theological school in Kharkiv and studied at the Higher Pedagogical Institute in Saint Petersburg. From 1788 he taught mathematics and physics at the Mining School in Barnaul and from 1791 at the St. Petersburg School for Military Engineers and other schools and from 1793 at the School for Military Doctors. In 1795 he became an associate professor at the newly founded Medical and Surgical Academy and built a well-equipped physics laboratory (in 1797 they received a large shipment of instruments from London).

In 1801 he published his first book, A collection of new physico-chemical experiments and observations (533 pages), in which he turned against the phlogiston theory after having carried out his own experiments on combustion processes (oxidation), following the theses of French anti-phlogiston opponents around Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier had examined.

He became known in 1802 as the discoverer of the electric arc . To this end, he had built the largest battery at the time ( voltaic ash column ) with 4,200 cells, each made of a copper and zinc plate. He described this in 1803 in News from Galvano-Voltaic Experiments and already suggested applications as a light source and in metallurgy and chemistry. Soon after his death he was forgotten in Russia as well.

In 1802 he became a corresponding and in 1815 full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences .

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• Boris N. Menschutkin: Vasilij Vladimirovic Petrov and His Physico-Chemical Work . In: Isis . tape 25 , no. 2 , 1936, pp. 391 , doi : 10.1086 / 347088 .
• VP Kartsev: VV Petrov's Hypothetical Experiment and Electrical Experiments of the 18th Century . In: William R. Shea (Ed.): Nature Mathematized . Springer, 1983, p. 279-289 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-94-009-6957-5_13 .