100 Russian Engineers Who Changed Our Life 100 RUSSIAN ENGINEERS WHO CHANGED OUR LIFE Moscow 2014 Dear Reader, The book you are holding in your hands is today more relevant than ever. It is unlikely that anyone would doubt Russia’s need in highly skilled engineers. The country requires a breakthrough in science and technology. This means that the time has come to bet on innovative development, drawing on the rich history of Russian engineering. For a number of centuries Russia enjoyed undisputed leadership in science and engineering breakthroughs. Its scientists and inventors were pioneers in many branches of science and technology. The discoveries they made changed our world, creating a new reality, earning admiration for our country and respect as a superpower. The main goal of this book is to remind people of the outstanding contributions our engineers have made towards the progress of science and technology, to teach the younger generations about Russian history and to tell them how interesting engineering can be. The generation of the 21 st century should know about our compatriots, whose inventions and discoveries made such great contributions to human knowledge, and they should strive to meet or surpass those achievements. Despite the unquestionable difficulties of modern Russian industry, the professions of engineers, designers, and science workers are still prestigious and in demand. Developing unique technologies, constantly refining them and looking for new solutions expands the limits of the possible, making the future a reality today; those are the traditional principles our brilliant engineers were guided by. These same principles should also be the basis of how work is organised in any modern company. The book 100 Russian Engineers Who Changed Our Life is the important step towards the global changes needed to increase the competitiveness of Russian industry, the advancing of our science and creating of a true engineering elite. The Russian industrial renaissance must be based on respect for the great achievements of this country and the people who have come to symbolise the brilliance of great ideas and elegant practical solutions. Oleg Deripaska Chairman of the Supervisory Board Basic Element Group Contents PART 1 “The First, the One and Only” and His Turbine 71 Fire from the Sky 137 Representative of Russian Science 205 ORIGINS OF RUSSIAN Pavel Kuzminsky. Radial Gas Turbine Alexander Lodygin. Incandescent Light Bulb Pyotr Kapitsa. Expansion Turbine— A Highly Efficient Gas Liquefier TECH INNOVATIONS 11 Rival to Diesel 75 Conqueror of the Sun 141 Gustav Trinkler. Airless Injection Diesel Engine Alexander Stoletov. Photoelectric Cell Based How Crystals Grow 211 Theatre of the Lathe 13 on the External Photoelectric Effect Alexey Shubnikov. Modern Crystallography Andrey Nartov. Lathe with Adjustable Carriage Barge Hauler Who Designed a Tractor 79 and Piezoelectric Textures Fyodor Blinov. Tracked Tractor Wireless Telegraphy 145 Seeing More 17 Alexander Popov. Radio Aluminium for the Wings 215 Mikhail Lomonosov. Telescopes, Night-vision Devices, Providing the Country with Coal 83 Ivan Sidorin. Kolchugalumin Periscopes, and Other Optical Instruments Alexey Bakhmutsky. First Coal Mining Machine Making Communications More Reliable 149 (Russian Duralumin) Valentin Vologdin. A High-voltage Rectifier The Man Who Tamed Fire 21 with a Liquid Mercury Cathode Scientific Way of Inventing 219 Ivan Polzunov. Steam Machine PART 3 Heinrich Altschuller. Theory of Inventive and Two-cylinder Steam Engine Just a Lab Assistant 153 ROAD TO TOMORROW 89 Problem Solving Oleg Losev. Amplifying Jack of All Trades and a Gearbox 25 First Minister of the First Railways 91 and Generating Semiconductor. Light Diode Ivan Kulibin. Self-propelled Cart Pavel Melnikov. St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway Thirty Patents of Father Pavel 159 PART 6 High-grade Steel 29 Major General for Eight Spans 95 Pavel Florensky. The First All-purpose RUNNING AHEAD OF TIME 225 Semyon Badaev. Badaev Steel Stanis áaw KierbedĨ. The Blagoveshchensky Bridge Russian Plastic Film Instead of Glass 227 across the Neva River Telegraph of the Russian Cagliostro 33 Ivan Boldyrev. The First Light Sensitive Pavel Schilling. Electromagnetic Telegraph Bridge to the Future 99 PART 5 Non-combustible Photographic Film Dmitry Zhuravsky. Trelliswork Structure Steam Train in the Stone Belt 37 SCIENCE IN CHASE FOR PRACTICE 165 The Great-Grandfather of Hollywood 231 of the Verebya Bridge Yefim and Miron Cherepanov. The First Russian Joseph Timchenko. Movie Camera The Man Who Measured the Sun 167 Railway Electric Traction Instead of Horses 103 Witold Ceraski. Astronomical Photometric Devices. Russia in Colour 235 Fyodor Pirotsky. Electric Tram The Bayard of the Engineering Corps 41 Heliometer for Measuring Solar Compression Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. Colour Photography Karl Schilder. Submarine Spanning Distant Shores 107 The Motion of the Stars 171 3D Fairy Tales 241 Lavr Proskuryakov. Designing Bridges Aristarkh Belopolsky. Spectrograph Wladislaw Starewicz. 3D Animation PART 2 across Siberian Rivers In Search of Beauty 175 Live Images at Home 245 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 47 Above Water and Ground 111 Vladimir Shukhov. Shukhov Towers Boris Rosing. Cathode Ray Tube Vladimir Levkov. Air Cushion Vehicle In Search of Damascus Steel 49 Engineer and Governor 181 Poetry of Pins 249 Pavel Anosov. Recovering the Secret Creator of the Russian Automotive Industry 115 Pyotr Shilovsky. Gyroscopic Equipment Alexander Alexeyev. Pin Screen of Damascus Steel Andrey Liphart. Pobeda Vehicle A Rainbow in Ordinary Leaves 185 How the Screen Began to Speak 253 Prime Steel 53 Wings for the Raketa 121 Mikhail Tsvet. Chromatography Alexander Shorin. Optical System for Recording Dmitry Chernov. Metals Science Rostislav Alexeyev. Hydrofoils and Reproducing Sound onto Motion Picture Film and Reform of Steel Production Reaching the Depths 189 Matvey Kapelyushnikov. Turbodrill The Founder of Television 257 First after Hephaestus 57 PART 4 Vladimir Zvorykin. Electronic Television Nikolay Benardos. Electric Arc Welding TAMING ELECTRICITY 127 Synthetic “Tree Tears” 193 Sergey Lebedev. Synthetic Rubber Oscar for a Russian Engineer 261 Electrical Arc Revolution 61 The Power of Electricity 129 Alexander Poniatoff. Videotape Recorder Nikolay Slavyanov. Arc Welding Boris Jacobi. Electric Motor Three-dimensional Meteorology 197 with Metallic Electrode with Direct Drive Line Rotation Pavel Molchanov. Meteorological Radiosonde Skyneedle 265 Nikolay Nikitin. Ostankino TV Tower Engine Running on Unconventional Fuel 65 “Russian Light” 133 What Can Stereograph Do? 201 Ignatiy (Ogneslav) Kostovic ´. Petrol Engine Pavel Yablochkov. Yablochkov Candle Fyodor Drobyshev. Stereographs and Stereometers PART 7 Katyusha for the Victory 333 Jet Airliner 393 Thin Protection 457 Vladimir Artemyev. Multiple IN SEARCH OF SMART MACHINES 271 Andrey Tupolev. The First Soviet Jet Airliner. Georgy Flyorov. Track Membrane Technologies Rocket Launcher Katyusha The World's First Supersonic Airliner Wireless Control 273 Artificial Sun 461 The Absolute Weapon 337 Nikolay Pilchikov. Wireless Control System Sputnik and Gagarin 399 Lev Artsimovich. First Thermonuclear Reactor Mikhail Kalashnikov. AK Assault Rifle Sergey Korolyov. First Artificial Satellite. Automatic Call 277 First Human in Space Mikhail (Moses) Freidenberg. PART 11 Subscriber PART 9 Preselector—A Device for Automatically Tracing Seeing the Invisible 405 PUZZLE OUT THE DIGIT 467 the Subscriber That a Call is Being Made To FEEL THE SKY 343 Boris Rauschenbach. Photographing the Dark Side of the Moon Computer without Electronics 469 Harmless Printing 281 From the Cell to Other Worlds 345 Alexey Krylov. A Machine for Integrating Victor Gassiev. Phototypesetting Machine Nikolay Kibalchich. Interplanetary Powerful Thrust 411 Ordinary Differential Equations Spacecraft Design Pavel Solovyov. Turbofan Jet Engine At the Wave of a Hand 285 The First Computer of the Old World 475 Le´on Theremin. Theremin First Take-off 349 Communication through Space 415 Sergey Lebedev. First Supercomputer Alexander Mozhaysky. The First Aircraft Boris Chertok. Communications Satellites in Continental Europe Music Drawings 291 to Take Off Evgeny Sholpo. Variophone, Rolling on the Moon 421 Counting to Three 479 the Optical Synthesiser Flying the Scientific Way 353 Alexander Kemurdzhian. World’s First Nikolay Brusentsov. Setun, the First Ternary Nikolay Zhukovsky. Aerodynamics Planetary Rover Computer Using a Symmetrical Creating New Dimension 295 Ternary Number System Semyon Ivanov. 3D without Glasses Strategic Superhero 357 Combat “Crocodile” 427 Igor Sikorski. First Multi-engine Aircraft Mikhail Mil. The Most Successful Unorthodox Computer 483 Sound from a Machine 299 Mass-produced Twin-engine Helicopter. Creator of the Flying Boat 361 Israel Akushsky. A Specialised Working Computer Evgeny Murzin. Electronic Synthesiser An Attack Helicopter Dmitry Grigorovich. Specially Built Having a Residue Number System to Speed Up Amphibious Plane the Calculation Process PART 8 Helicopters are the First 365 PART 10 305 List of Illustrations 488 WARS ARE WON BY ENGINEERS Boris Yuriev. The Swash Plate ALMIGHTY ATOM 433 “Three-line Rifle” 307 for the Helicopter’s Rotor Peaceful Atom 435 Sergey Mosin. The 1891 Bolt Action Rifle The Road to Space 369 Igor Kurchatov. The World’s First Russian Smokeless 311 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Multistage Rocket Design Nuclear Power Plant Dmitry Mendeleyev. Pyrocollodion The Space Shuttle Engine 375 2-D Meets 3-D