Technikatörténeti szemle 9. (1977)

KRÓNIKA - Debreczeny Ágnes: Energia – Ember – Munka. Az Országos Műszaki Múzeum új kiállítása

Simultaneously with the spreading of steam engines, physicists were experimenting with a hitherto unknown phenomenon — electricity. Following experiments by Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta at the turn of 18/19th centuries, the fundamental laws of electric phenomena were formulated by Oersted, Ampere, Ohm and Faraday, thus clearing the road to industrial applications. The ancestor of electric motors was devised by Ányos Jedlik, a young Hungarian physicist, in 1829. He was the first to use an electro-magnet for the generation of a continuous rotation. The research workers in the industrially advanced western countries knew nothing of Jedlik's motor but, to satisfy actual demands, the first workable electric motors were soon devised by Dal Negro, Pixii, Ritchie. However, the spreading of electric power driven machines was for long retarded by the lack of a constant-rate, high-intensity, permanent current source. Chemical electrical batteries and accumulators started the progress of electric telegraphy (e. g. up-to-date telecommunication) and electric lighting — thus creating new consumers of energy — but they proved to be too expensive and cumbersome to be employed in the manufacturing industry and transports. In this field, too, the first step was taken by Ányos Jedlik in 1861 (inventing the self-inductance dynamo). However, the dynamo was re-invented for actual applications seven years later by Werner Siemens. The exhibition shows Jedlik's and Siemens' dynamos side by side — for the first time in history. With the introduction of electricity and the various ways of current generation and consumption, the questions of energy and work were acquiring an increasing complexity. In the uses of electricity, a highly significant invention was made in 1885 by three engineers of the Ganz Factory — the transformer of Bláthy-Déry-Zipernowsky, which solved the problem of electric power transformation and distribution. Their transformer applied the principle of parallel power distribution. The first two models of the patented transformer — the jacket and core transformers — are today highly treasured relics of the history of technology and engineering. The tranformer-based electric power distribution system enabled electric power to be carried over long distances, and the loads (consumers) to be provided continuously with low voltages. Kálmán Kandó (1869—1931) set a new direction to the electrification of big railway lines with optimum energy economy. The phase-inverter electric locomotive (1923) is of historic significance in electric transport. At the beginning of this century, the rapidly increasing energy demand foreshadowed the menacing problems of energy carriers. Knowing the contemporary deposits of coal and mineral oil. the researches and geologists held the view that, with the extremely rapid spreading of steam and internal combustion engines, those energy resources would be used up by about 1980. (Fortunately, this prediction has proved to be wrong. The resources of the Soviet Union, China, South America, Alaska and the recently discovered deposits along the continental shelves are, for the time being, encouraging reserves). The „re-discovery" of wind and hydro-energies has a great significance. Emerg-