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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 5: Instruments as tools and subjects of research

GP 5.3: Vortrag

Dienstag, 19. März 2019, 12:00–12:30, HS 9

In search of higher vacuum — •Brenni Paolo — Via Pollini 14, 6850 Mendrisio Switzerland

In the second half of the 19th C. the use of vacuum pumps became more and more important in physics laboratories. If the old single or double-barrelled pumps, which had been used and improved since the beginning of the 18th.C, were good enough for lecture demonstrations, the researches in the fields of rarefied gases ( with the Geissler, Crookes, Plücker tubes) required better and more performant vacuum pump. New types of mercury pumps were invented by Toepler, Sprengel, Geissler and others allowed to reach higher vacua. With the diffusion of incandescent light bulbs and later the introduction of X-rays tubes, vacuum production became also an industrial affair. In the early 20th c., thanks to the progresses of physics and also of precision mechanics, W.Gaede and others invented various types of vacuum pump ( oil or mercury rotatory pumps, diffusion pumps etc.) which opened the way to modern vacuum technology. * In my presentation I will retrace the evolution of this technology and its apparatus between 1850 and 1930 both in the laboratories as well as in industries.