Hungarian Heritage Review, 1988 (17. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1988-05-01 / 5. szám
Special |[eature-©f-íiJf|i>-(iííimtb now concentrated his attention on the construction of various vehicles of transportation. The engine-powered tricycles built by him for the Hungarian Postal Management in 1900 were in use for 20 years. He built the first Hungarian automobile in 1902, a car with two cylinders. He designed and built the very first four-cylinder automobiles in Hungary in 1904. He designed various four-cylinder automobiles in 1906-1912, which proved their excellent quality in several international competitions. At the age of 73 Janos Csonka retired from the university, and opened a workshop for the construction of gasoline engines. Under the leadership of two of his sons, Janos and Bela, it grew into a significant industrial plant: the “Csonka Janos Gépgyár’’ (“Janos Csonka Machine Factory”). It was nationalized in 1948 and from it developed what is known today as the “Kismotor- es Gépgyár” (“Small Engine and Machine Factory”). Jánosé Csonka continued to work intensely until just a few days before his death on October 27, 1939. Although Janos Csonka never received any formal training as a mechanical engineer he was nonetheless awarded that title when the Hungarian Chamber of Engineers invited him to become a member under the so-called “genius clause.” He was the first ever to be so invited. Mechanical engineer and inventor Karoly Zipernowsky (1853-1942) started his career as a pharmacist. He then enrolled in the Budapest University of Technical Sciences from which he graduated in 1878 in electrical engineering. Between 1893 and 1924 Zipernowsky worked as professor on the faculty of electrical engineering at the University. He preceded his contemporaries in the production and utilization of alternating currents. With the help of Miksa Deri (1854-1938) Zipernowsky constructed in 1883 a selfinduction alternating current generator. In 1889, once again with the scientific collaboration of Miksa Deri, he obtained a patent for a multiphase current distribution system. In his work, Zipernowsky Karoly sajat es masokkal közös, szabadalmazott talalmanyai (His patented inventions. . .Budapest, 1900) he described 40 of his inventions, among them a single-track electric railway. But his most significant invention in the field of electrical engineering was jointly produced and credited with Miksa Deri (1854-1938) and Otto Titusz Blathy (1860-1939); the transformer in 1885. See their study under the title “Secondary generators and transformers” in the Electrical Review (London, 1885, 1886). As mentioned above, Otto Titusz Blathy belonged to the giants of electrical engineering and helped invent the world’s first transformer thus making possible the conduction and distribution of electric currents over long distances. Blathy also was the first in the world to successfully apply the parallel switch of alternating currents (Cf. Cerchi power plants, Rome, Italy). The first watt meter of alternating currents (1885), and the first adequate turbine regulator were fashioned according to Blathy’s patents. One of his singlephase engines is housed in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The number of his Hungarian and foreign language publications amounts to about fifty. The Vienna and Budapest technical universities awarded him a honorary doctor’s degree in 1917. Kalman Kandó (1869-1931) was a pioneer in railway electrification. The electric engine he designed (Kandoengines) made possible railway electrification. Between 1896 and 1898 Kandó constructed the first high-voltage threephase electric railway (Évian-les-Bains). Then he converted Italy’s Valtellina Railway into an electric line (1898-1902). Due to the technical accomplishments of the Valtellina Railway the Italian government with the aid of U.S. capital established the Societa Italiana Westinghouse and started manufacturing Kandó’s electric locomotives. The Kandó system of railway electrification was so successful that it was called “Sistema Italiana.” Kandó spent some years in the United States as consultant to Westinghouse. His literary activity centered on railway electrification. Among his articles dealing with Italy’s railway electrification are “Der Betrieb der Valtellina-Bahn mit hochgespannten Drehstrom” Zeitschrift d. Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure, 1903), “Neue elektrische Guterzugslokomotive der Italianischen Staats - bahen” (Zeitschrift d. Vereins Deutsche Ingenieure, 1909). Following the American Civil War, but especially in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the rapid advance of American industry and technology exerted a great impact on men of science everywhere. During this period Benjamin Franklin was gradually replaced in the foreign image by Thomas A. Edison, perhaps the most prolific inventor of the United States and the world. Tivadar Puskas (1844-1893) traveled to the United States in order to discuss with Edison the idea of telephone exchange. According to Edison’s statement, “Puskas was the first man in the world who raised the idea of telephone exchange.” For several years Tivadar Puskas was Edison’s close associate and European representative. Puskas developed the principle and the very first form of telephone exchange and invented the “telephone newspaper” (telephonograph, telediffusion, telefonhirmondo). Puskas’ idea of broadcasting formed an organic part of the universal history of telecommunication. The original form of Puskas’ invention was displayed at the Paris Electrical Exhibition in 1881. It was Puskas who constructed the telephone exchange in Boston in 1878, and the first European telephone exchange in Paris in 1879. In 1887 he introduced the mulitplex switch boxes which had an epochal significance in the further development of telephone exchange. In 1892-1893 Puskas obtained an Austrian patent right to his invention, the “telephone newspaper,” — a system of news distribution to a network of subscribers which functioned as a wire news system and the precursor of the radio — which commenced operation in Budapest as early as 1893. The historic event was described recently by David L. Woods as follows: “The real pioneering genius who created these concepts of modern radio and television programming was Tivadar Puskas, who established the first operational broadcasting organization in 1893.” (David L. Woods, “Semantics versus the ‘First’ Broadcasting Station,” J. Broadcasting, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 199-207). Some of Puskas ideas are included in his article, “Organisation und Einrichtung einer Telephonzeitung” (Zeitschrift fur Elekrotechnik, 1893). MAY 1988 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 21
