Paul Eisler (3 August 1907 – 26 October 1992) was an Austrian inventor born in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. Among his innovations were the
printed circuit board
A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...
. In 2012, ''Printed Circuit Design & Fab'' magazine named its Hall of Fame after Eisler.
Early life and education
Paul Eisler was the son of Wilhelm Eisler, who was born in today's
Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
, and Caecilie Eisler from
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...
.
He studied
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...
at
Vienna University of Technology and graduated in 1930. Being Jewish, antisemitic German-Nationalist organizations prevented him from getting an engineering job in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, so he obtained employment with the British
Gramophone Company, operating in
Belgrade
Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...
.
[ ; edited with notes by Mari Williams] His task there was to eliminate radio interference on the music broadcast system on trains running from Belgrade to Niś.
The project was a technical success but a financial failure because the Serbian railroad could only pay the Gramophone Company by barter in grain, not
pounds sterling
Sterling (Currency symbol, symbol: Pound sign, £; ISO 4217, currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of account, unit of sterling, and the word ''Pound (cu ...
, due a foreign exchange crisis. As a result, he had to return to Vienna. He was still prevented from working as an engineer, but he found work as a journalist and printer, first at Randfunk (which developed a low-cost method of tabulating a radio program guide at the printer) and eventually landing at a social-democratic publisher, Vorwärts. The experience in printing proved crucial later. However, after the 1934
putsch by Austrian fascists and due to social-democratic nature of Vorwärts it was shut down.
Working independently, he patented some ideas from his doctorate at the university (on graphical sound recording and stereoscopic television) and leveraged them to obtain a visa to visit England to offer the patents to companies there in 1936.
His first cousin,
Philipp Fehl, contacted Eisler upon arrival as a refugee in England and Eisler helped to make sure that Fehl's father left Vienna alive after his release from the
Dachau concentration camp.
Inventions
Living in a
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...
boarding house, without work or a
work permit
A work permit or work visa is the permission to take a job within a foreign country. The foreign country where someone seeks to obtain a work permit for is also known as the "country of work", as opposed to the "country of origin" where someone ho ...
, he began to fabricate a radio using a
printed circuit board
A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...
while trying to sell some of his ideas. Around this time, the
Odeon hired him to work on their cinema technology. One of the common problems there was coping with theatre goers who spilled foods such as ice cream on the seats. Eisler devised a yellow fabric to cover affected furniture for the benefit of the next theater goer as well as flag it for removal and cleaning at the next opportunity.
Though he was able to help several members of his family escape Austria, he was subject to
internment
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...
by the British as an
enemy alien after the onset of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.
[Medawar & Pyke. p. 93.] After being released in 1941 and a short spell in the Pioneer Corps, he was able to engage Henderson and Spalding, a
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
company in
Camberwell
Camberwell ( ) is an List of areas of London, area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross.
Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles' Church, Camberwell, St Giles ...
run by Harold Vezey-Strong, to invest in his printed circuit idea via a specially created subsidiary of Henderson and Spalding called Technograph, but forfeited rights to his invention when he neglected to read the contract before signing it. It was a pretty standard employment contract in that he agreed to submit any patent right during his employment for a nominal fee (one pound sterling) but it also gave him 16.5 per cent ownership of Technograph. It drew no interest until the United States incorporated the technology into work on the
proximity fuze
A Proximity Fuse (also VT fuse or "variable time fuze") is a fuse that detonates an explosive device automatically when it approaches within a certain distance of its target. Proximity fuses are designed for elusive military targets such as air ...
which was vital to counter the German
V-1 flying bomb
The V-1 flying bomb ( "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry () name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was (hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug a ...
.
However, he did manage to obtain his first three printed circuit patent for a wide range of applications. They were split out from a single application submitted in 1943 and finally published after long legal procedures on 21 June 1950.
After the war ended, the United States opened access to his printed circuit innovation and since 1948, it has been used in all
airborne instrument electronics. Very few companies acknowledged or licensed Technograph's patents and the company had financial difficulties. He resigned from Technograph in 1957. Among his projects as a freelancer, were films to heat "floor and wall coverings"
and food, for example,
fish fingers.
The
wallpaper
Wallpaper is used in interior decoration to cover the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" to help cover uneve ...
idea was viable, but interest waned after the advent of cheaper energy resources with the discovery of
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
in the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
.
Eisler invented many other practical applications of heating technology, such as the pizza warmer and rear window defroster, but was not so successful in their commercialization.
In 1963, Technograph lost a lawsuit against Bendix over most of the claims in the US versions of patents.
Honours
He was awarded the
Pour le Mérite
The (; , ), also informally known as the ''Blue Max'' () after German WWI flying ace Max Immelmann, is an order of merit established in 1740 by King Frederick II of Prussia. Separated into two classes, each with their own designs, the was ...
by the French government. The Institute of Electrical Engineers awarded him the Nuffield Silver medal.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
History of Technograph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eisler, Paul
1907 births
1992 deaths
20th-century Austrian inventors
Engineers from Vienna
TU Wien alumni
Jewish scientists
Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom