Ernst Werner Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; ;[1] ;[2] 13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He founded the electrical and telecommunications conglomerate Siemens and invented the electric tram, trolley bus, electric locomotive and electric elevator.
His dynamo laid the foundation for the modern age of electricity and he was involved in the development of the electric car.[3]
Biography
Early years
Ernst Werner Siemens was born in Lenthe,[4] today part of Gehrden, near Hannover, in the Kingdom of Hanover in the German Confederation, the third child (of fourteen) of Christian Ferdinand Siemens (31 July 1787 – 16 January 1840) and wife Eleonore Deichmann (1792 – 8 July 1839). His father was a tenant farmer of the Siemens family, an old family of Goslar, documented since 1384. Carl Heinrich von Siemens and Carl Wilhelm Siemens were his brothers.
Middle years
After finishing school, Siemens intended to study at the Bauakademie Berlin.[5] However, since his family was highly indebted and thus could not afford to pay the tuition fees, he chose to join the Prussian Military Academy's School of Artillery and Engineering, between the years 1835–1838, instead, where he received his officers training.[6] Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals, and contributing to the invention of electrically-charged sea mines, which were used to combat a Danish blockade of Kiel during the First Schleswig War.[7][8]
Upon returning home from war, he chose to work on perfecting technologies that had already been established and eventually became known worldwide for his advances in various technologies. In 1843 he sold the rights to his first invention to Elkington of Birmingham.[9]
Later years
Apart from the pointer telegraph, Siemens made sufficient contributions to the development of electrical engineering that he became known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world's first electric passenger train in 1879,[12] and the first electric elevator in 1880.[13] His company produced the tubes with which Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen investigated x-rays. He claimed invention of the dynamo although others invented theirs around the same time. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the Bell System in the late 1920s for use as a loudspeaker.[14] Wente's adaptation was issued in 1929.
In May 1881, Siemens & Halske inaugurated the world's first electric tram service, in the Berlin suburb of Groß-Lichterfelde.[15]
Personal life
He was married twice: first in 1852 to Mathilde Drumann (died 1 July 1867), the daughter of the historian Wilhelm Drumann; second in 1869 to his relative Antonie Siemens (1840–1900). His children from first marriage were Arnold von Siemens and Georg Wilhelm von Siemens, and his children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens (1870 – 5 January 1939), married in 1899 to Carl Dietrich Harries, and Carl Friedrich von Siemens.
Siemens was an advocate of social democracy,[16] and he hoped that industrial development would not be used in favour of capitalism, stating:
"A number of great factories in the hands of rich capitalists, in which 'slaves of work' drag out their miserable existence, is not, therefore, the goal of the development of the age of natural science, but a return to individual labour, or where the nature of things demands it, the carrying on of common workshops by unions of workmen, who will receive a sound basis only through the general extension of knowledge and civilization, and through the possibility of obtaining cheaper capital.[17]"
Commemoration
Werner von Siemens' portrait appeared on the banknote issued by the Reichsbank from 1929 until 1939.[21] Printing ceased in 1939 but the note remained in circulation until the issue of the Deutsche Mark on 21 June 1948.
In 1923, German botanist Ignatz Urban published Siemensia, which is a monotypic genus of flowering plant from Cuba belonging to the family Rubiaceae and was named in honor of Werner von Siemens.[22]
U.S. patents
- — Electric railway (21 July 1885)
- — Electric railway (20 April 1886)
- — Electric meter (19 November 1889)
- — Electric meter (20 May 1890)
- — Electric railway (22 May 1894)
- — Method of and apparatus for extracting gold from its ores (22 March 1898)
See also
- Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck—one of Siemens's aides
- Werner von Siemens Ring Award
- German inventors and discoverers
- History of electrical engineering
- Timeline of the electric motor
- Bow collector
- Dielectric barrier discharge
- Double-T armature
- Dynamo
- Electric bell
- Electric locomotive
- Electric generator
- Electromote
- Elevator
- Experimental three-phase railcar
Further reading
- Shaping the Future. The Siemens Entrepreneurs 1847–2018. Ed. Siemens Historical Institute, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86774-624-3.
- Werner von Siemens, Lebenserinnerungen, Berlin, 1892 (reprinted as Mein Leben, Zeulenroda, 1939).
- Werner von Siemens, Scientific & Technical Papers of Werner von Siemens. Vol. 1: Scientific Papers and Addresses, London, 1892; Vol. 2: Technical Papers, London, 1895.
- Sigfrid von Weiher, Werner von Siemens, A Life in the Service of Science, Technology and Industry, Göttingen, 1975.
- Wilfried Feldenkirchen, Werner von Siemens, Inventor and International Entrepreneur. Columbus, Ohio, 1994.
- Nathalie von Siemens, A Brimming Spirit. Werner von Siemens in Letters. A Modern Entrepreneurial History, Murmann Publishers, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86774-562-8.
- Lifelines: Werner von Siemens, Vol. 5, ed. Siemens Historical Institute, Berlin 2016
External links
- Biography, Siemens Corporate Archives
- Loudspeaker History (U. of San Diego)
- Short biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
References
- John Wells. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary Pearson Longman, 3 April 2008^
- John C. Wells. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary Longman, 2008^
- The electrification of the world^