František Křižík (; July 8, 1847 – January 22, 1941) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

inventor, electrical engineer, and entrepreneur.

Biography

Křižík was born into a family in Plánice. In spite of his background, Křižík managed in 1866 to study engineering at the Technical University of Prague ČVUT. Křižík is considered the pioneer of practical electrical engineering and in electrification of Bohemia and Austro-Hungarian empire. At the time he was often compared to

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

. In 1878 Křižík invented a remotely operated signaling device to protect against collision between

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

s.František Křižík
/ref> Křižík's cores are magnetic solenoids cores shaped so as to insure an approximately uniform pull in different positions in the solenoid. His first experiments in

Plzeň Plzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, in German ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 169,000 inhabitants. The city is known worldwid ...

resulted in the invention in 1880 of the automatic electric

arc lamp An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc (also called a voltaic arc). The carbon arc light, which consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in air, invented by Humphry Davy in the first decade of the 1800s, ...

, the so-called "Plzen Lamp" which was displayed at the

International Exposition of Electricity The first International Exposition of Electricity in Paris ran from August 15, 1881 through to November 15, 1881 at the Palais de l'Industrie on the Champs-Élysées. It served to display the advances in electrical technology since the small elec ...

in Paris in 1881. This lamp, with self-adjusting brushes, won the gold medal from among 50 similar devices. Later he successfully defended his patent against

Werner Siemens Ernst Werner Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; ; ; 13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He fou ...

claim to have created it first. His lamps were successfully used in many cities for street lighting. The restored and fully functional patented arc lamp with automated electrode adjustment can be viewed at the Museum of Pilsen. In 1894, he designed an electric musical fountain illuminated by coloured lamps, one of the most popular attractions at the General National Exhibition in Lviv. In 1895 Křižík built one of first electromobiles in Austrian empire. In 1884 Křižík set up his own company building city lighting, tramway lines, street cars, power stations, and various electric equipment. A Prague street and subsequently near subway station were named after František Křižík – Křižíkova.

Electrified railway Tábor–Bechyně

František Křižík built the first

electrified railway A railway electrification system supplies electric power to railway trains and trams without an on-board prime mover or local fuel supply. Electric railways use either electric locomotives (hauling passengers or freight in separate cars), ele ...

in the Austro-Hungarian empire from

Tábor Tábor (; german: Tabor) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. Administrative parts The follow ...

Bechyně Bechyně (; german: Bechin, Beching or ''Bechingen'') is a town in Tábor District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 4,900 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urba ...

in 1903. The track gauge was . The maximum speed was .

Legacy

The

main belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

5719 Křižík was named in his honor.

References

External links

Biography

František Křižík
has diagram of his differential arc lamp 1847 births 1941 deaths People from Plánice Czech engineers Czech inventors 20th-century Czech businesspeople Czech Technical University in Prague alumni 19th-century Czech businesspeople {{CzechRepublic-business-bio-stub