Background
Augusto Righi was born on August 27, 1850, in Bologna, Province of Bologna, Italy.
1903
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920) preparing lesson on atmospheric electricity at the University of Bologna, Italy, from LIllustrazione Italiana, Year XXX, No 9, March 1, 1903.
1903
Bologna, Italy
Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920) in his workshop in Bologna, Italy, from L'Illustrazione Italiana.
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Righi took the four-year mathematics at the University of Bologna, and after another year graduated from the School of Engineering in 1872, with a dissertation in physics.
This instrument for generating radio waves was invented by Augusto Righi Professor at the university.
Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920)
Speaker (Altoparlante) by Augusto Righi
Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920)
Righi induction electrometer by Augusto Righi.
Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920)
Bologna, Italy
A bust of Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920)
A postal stamp dedicated to Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920).
A postal stamp dedicated to Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920).
Istituto di Fisica, Bologna, Italy
A memorial bust dedicated to Professor Augusto Righi (1850-1920).
Bologna, Italy
Professor Augusto Righi working in his laboratory.
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Three-spark oscillator by Augusto Righi, 1893 - 1894. From the collection from the Museum of Physics.
Certosa, 16, 40134 Bologna, Italy
Monument in honor of Augusto Righi at the Certosa.
Professor Augusto Righi
educator physicist scientist electromagnetism
Augusto Righi was born on August 27, 1850, in Bologna, Province of Bologna, Italy.
Righi studied in Bologna at the Technical School (1861-1867), then took the four-year mathematics at the University of Bologna, and after another year graduated from the School of Engineering in 1872, with a dissertation in physics.
Before Righi graduated from the School of Engineering in 1872, with a dissertation in physics, the previous year he had been appointed an assistant to the chair of physics. From 1873 to 1880 he was the physics teacher at the Technical School, and in November 1880 he won the competition for the newly established chair of experimental physics at the University of Palermo. He was a professor of physics at the University of Padua from November 1885 to 1889, when he returned to Bologna as a professor at the Institute of Physics of the University. He taught there until his death.
His graduation thesis (1872) concerned the invention of an induction electrometer that permitted him to investigate weak electrostatic phenomena, including the Volta effect. The device could not only amplify and measure an initially minute electric charge but also served as an induction electrostatic generator and thus constituted a precise, small-scale model of the Van de Graaff accelerator (1933). Righi’s interest in the development of experimental devices, as well as the mathematical approach to the interpretation of data, led to an important analytical paper on the composition of vibrational motion (1873), described by Lissajous some months before. In it, he presented original ideas on the composition of two harmonic orthogonal motions (not necessarily of the same period) in a plane and the resulting curves. Righi also considered the same problem in three dimensions and defined the trajectories that result from three harmonic motions orthogonal to each other.
In subsequent work (1875), taking as his point of departure Helmholtz’ studies in physiological optics, he described the polystereoscope, of his own invention, and proposed a new theorem of projective geometry in order to offer a physical and mathematical solution of the problems of binocular vision and the stereoscopic effect.
At the Technical School of Bologna, Righi turned increasingly to applied research. In 1880 he discovered and described magnetic hysteresis, a few months before Warburg, who is credited with the discovery. Although he patented a microphone using conductive powder and a loudspeaker, his inventions elicited little interest.
Righi's work at Palermo centered on the Hall and Kerr effects. He discovered that the Hall effect is several thousand times greater in bismuth than in gold and that the magnetic field in bismuth also causes a variation of electric and - as S.-A. Leduc also discovered - thermal resistance. Continuing his research in Padua, Righi also began studying the photoelectric effect, inspired by Hertz's casual observation (1887) that light that is rich in high-frequency radiation is conducive to discharge between two electrodes. In a preliminary note of March 1888, Righi demonstrated that when two electrodes are exposed to radiation, rich in ultraviolet rays, they act like a voltaic couple, and he called this phenomenon the photoelectric effect. He also described the connection on a series of multiple couples forming a photoelectric battery, pointing out that the maximum effect is obtained with selenium. Wilhelm Hallwachs had published a memoir on this subject less than two months earlier and is credited with a priority of discovery, although he had not clarified the phenomenon so completely.
In his lectures at Bologna from 1892 on, Righi demonstrated Hertz's recent experiments on electromagnetic waves, and in 1893 he divulged his own preliminary findings on their nature. Unlike Marconi, who was attempting to apply Hertzian waves in wireless telegraphy, Righi wished to use them to prove the laws of classical optics. In order not to resort to mirrors, prisms, and lenses of prohibitive dimensions, he reduced the wavelength used in his experiments to only 26 mm (May 1894), thereby opening the new field of microwaves to subsequent research and technology. In this way, Righi had demonstrated that Hertzian waves not only interfere with each other and are refracted and reflected, but that they are also subject to diffraction, absorption, and double refraction, like the waves of the visible spectrum. The results of his experiments were published in the widely read L'ottica delle oscillazioni eleltriche (1897), which is still considered a classic of experimental electromagnetism.
Augusto Righi was a member of the Royal Society and Russian Academy of Sciences.