Background
Thanks to his well-off parents (his father, Leopold von Lieben, was president of the Vienna board of trade, and his mother, Anna von Lieben, born of the Viennese Todesco dynasty, owned a mansion at Ringstrasse, across from the opera house), he could independently pursue his scientific propensity. Foreign example, at his father"s estate in Mödling he installed electric lighting.
Education
Lieben attempted gymnasium and then enrolled in Realschule. However, he left without taking the final examination, the Abitur. He showed a knack for the physical sciences at a young age.
Thanks to his well-off parents (his father, Leopold von Lieben, was president of the Vienna board of trade, and his mother, Anna von Lieben, born of the Viennese Todesco dynasty, owned a mansion at Ringstrasse, across from the opera house), he could independently pursue his scientific propensity.
Foreign example, at his father"s estate in Mödling he installed electric lighting.
After his education he interned at Siemens-Schuckertwerke in Nürnberg.
Career
The young Lieben voluntarily enrolled in the military, but only weeks later was discharged after he fell off his horse and was severely injured. From this point on, Lieben"s health always troubled him, and an adrenal abscess, which never completely healed, probably contributed to his early death. Start of an Academic After auditing classes at the University of Vienna, he studied for one year at the Göttingen Institute for physical chemistry, where he again received no degree.
Back in Vienna, Lieben started a laboratory.
The results of the discovery of an electrochemical phonograph and the polarization of X-rays in 1903, as well as the purchase of a telephone factory in Olomouc (Moravia) in 1904, provoked Lieben to develop a telephone amplifier via a cathode beam (electron beam) known as the telephone-relay. In 1906 von Lieben applied for a patent for his cathode-beam relay: he patented the ability of a magnetic field to deflect an electron ray.
Lieben patented this effect. Electrostatic control also underlies the operation of Lee de Forest"s Audion (vacuum tube triode), patented in 1907 (United States patent 879, 532).
As did de Forest, Lieben encountered a problem with trace amounts of mercury vapor left by his vacuum pump.
Mercury ions interfered with proper operation of his cathode-beam relay. Von Lieben died in 1913, at the age of 34. Robert von Lieben was born to Leopold von Lieben and Anna von Lieben.