Background
Vasily Petrov was born in the town of Oboyan (currently Kursk Oblast of Russia) in the family of a priest.
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Vasily Petrov
Edit ProfileEducation
He studied at a public school in Kharkov, and then at the Saint St. Petersburg Teacher"s College.
Career
In 1788, he gained a position as mathematics and physics teacher at Kolyvansko-Voskresenskoe College of Mining, in the town of Barnaul. In 1791, he was transferred to Saint St. Petersburg to teach mathematics and Russian at the military Engineering College, in the Izmailovsky regiment. In 1793, Petrov was invited to teach mathematics and physics at the Saint St. Petersburg Medical and Surgery School, at the military hospital.
In 1795, he was promoted to the rank of "Extraordinary Professor".
During the next few years, he built up a comprehensive physics laboratory. His first published book, "A collection of new physical-chemical experiments and observations" (Russian: Собрание физико-химических новых опытов и наблюдений), was published in 1801.
The bulk of this work was dedicated to the description of experiments related to combustion, as evidence against the then-popular phlogiston theory. The chapters, describing luminosity of phosphors of mineral and organic origins have elicited vivid interest in scientific circles.
Petrov was able to detect the maximum temperature when phosphorus ceases to glow in open (atmospheric) air, by his numerous experiments with fluorite he was able to prove it glows due to a different reason than phosphorus.
In 1802, Petrov rediscovered the electric arc effect, thanks to his building the world"s largest and most powerful Voltaic pile at the time, which consisted of around 4,200 copper and zinc discs. In “News of Galvanic-Voltaic Experiments,” 1803 (Russian: Izvestie o galvani-voltovskikh opytakh), Petrov described experiments performed using the voltaic pile, detailing the stable arc discharge and the indication of its possible use in artificial lighting, melting metals for smelting and welding, obtaining pure metallic oxides, and reduction of metals from oxides mixed with powdered carbon and oils. A copy of "News of Galvanic-Voltaic Experiments" was discovered by chance in a library in the town of Vilno near the end of the 19th century.
The book was the first time in world literature that a series of important physical phenomena related to electricity were described in detail.
lieutenant was not until the late 1880s that technology based on Petrov"s experiments was developed with the goal of industrial usage.
Membership
Russian Academy of Sciences.
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Born
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Died
August 3, 1834 (aged 73) -
Nationality
Russian Empire -
Ethnicity