Georg Wilhelm Richmann
Georg Wilhelm Richmann (Russian: Георг Вильгельм Рихман) (July 22 1711 (old style: July 11 1711) – August 6 1753 (old style: July 26 1753)) was a German physicist living in Russia.
He was born into a Baltic German family in Pernau (today Pärnu, Estonia) in what had been Swedish Livonia but later became part of Imperial Russia as a result of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). His father died of plague before he was born, and his mother remarried. In his early years he studied in Reval (today's Tallinn, Estonia); later he studied in Germany at the universities of Halle and Jena.
In 1741 he was elected a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He did pioneering work on electricity and atmospheric electricity, and also worked on calorimetry, in doing so collaborating with Mikhail Lomonosov. Richmann also worked as a tutor of the children of Count Andrei Osterman. In 1741 he translated Alexander Pope's Essay on Man into German through French.
He was electrocuted in St. Petersburg "while trying to quantify the response of an insulated rod to a nearby storm." He was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder. The Professor ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. While the experiment was underway, ball lightning appeared, collided with Richmann's head and killed him, leaving a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the doorframe of the room was split, and the door itself torn off its hinges. [1] Reportedly, ball lightning traveled along the apparatus and was the cause of his death. [2] [3] He was apparently the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments.[4]
References
- ^ On 6 August 1753, the Swedish scientist Georg Wilhelm Richmann was electrocuted in St. Petersburg while trying to quantify the response of an insulated rod to a nearby storm. The incident, reported worldwide, underscored the dangers inherent in experimenting with insulated rods and in using protective rods with faulty ground connections. [1]
- ^ Clarke, Ronald W. Benjamin Franklin, A Biography. Random House (1983) p. 87.
- ^ "Frenchman Thomas François D'Alibard used a 50-foot long vertical rod to draw down the "electric fluid" of the lightning in Paris on May 10, 1752. One week later, M. Delor repeated the experiment in Paris, followed in July by an Englishman, John Canton. But one unfortunate physicist did not fare so well. Georg Wilhelm Reichmann attempted to reproduce the experiment, according to Franklin's instructions, standing inside a room. A glowing ball of charge traveled down the string, jumped to his forehead and killed him instantly - providing history with the first documented example of ball lightning in the process." [2]
- ^ Physicists create great balls of fire - fundamentals - 07 June 2006 - New Scientist