Abstract
It is only in our time that the name of Russian academician Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov (1761–1834) — the discoverer of electrical arcs (1802) — became widely known among foreign historians of physics. It should be noted though, that in Russia itself academician Petrov was forgotten soon after his death and that his works fell into oblivion.1 No documents elucidating his private life were preserved, no portrait of him was left, and his burial-place was lost. V. V. Petrov’s now so well known book “News of the galvani-voltaic experiments which professor of physics Vasily Petrov had conducted by means of a particularly huge battery consisting at times of 4200 copper and zinc disks and installed at St. Petersburg Medicine and Surgery Academy”, published in 1803 in St. Petersburg, was by chance discovered in a library in the town of Vilno at the end of the last century. Familiarization with the book showed that for the first time in world literature it described a series of physical phenomena of paramount importance related to electricity.
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Notes
S. I. Vavilov (ed.). Academician V. V. Petrov, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Moscow-Leningrad, 1940.
V. V. Chenakal. ‘A valuable find’, Literaturnaya Gazeta, June 6, 1952, N 75 (2948), p. 2.
A. I. Leushin. On the authenticity of academician V. V. Petrov’s portrait. Problems of history of natural sciences and technogy. N 1, 1980, 129–130.
Ibid.
This term has not been fully established in modern science and attempts are made to refer it to entire communities and scientific periods (see e.g. Novic I. B. Style of Thinking in Natural Sciences, Moscow, Progress, 1972.) and even reject it completely (see: Kedrov B. M. About scientific revolutions. Problems of History of Natural Science and Technology, N 3, 1980).
Ja. G. Dorfman. History of Physics, v. I, Nauka, 1974, pp. 280–309.
B. Kuznetsov. The historical roots of Faraday’s works), in: ‘History of Technology’. II, ONTI, Moscow-Leningrad, 1934, pp. 22–56.
V. P. Kartzev. Scientists’ intermediate social environment and their biography, in: Men of science. ‘Nauka’, Moscow, 1974.
L. D. Belkind, V. V. Petrov, in: ‘People of the Russian science’, GITTL. Moscow-Leningrad, 1948.
This situation resembles the situation which arose later for J. Henry who, after having built an extremely powerful electromagnet, discovered very subtle effects, imperceptible with less powerful equipment. We can also note some other cammon features which characterized Petrov’s and Henry’s lives and activities, e.g. the ‘provincialism’ of their scientific environments, etc.
V. V. Petrov. New electrical experiments. S. Petersb., 1884, p. 70.
The archives of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, also see in the book ‘Academician V. V. Petrov’, p. 207.
L. Galvani, A. Volta. Selected works on animal electricity, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Moscow-Leningrad, 1937.
See in the book ‘Academician V. V. Petrov’, 1940, p. 66.
V. Chenakal. A valuable find — in’ Literaturnaya Gazeta’…
F. Rosenberger. History of physics, Vol. 2, ONTI, Moscow-Leningrad, 1937.
M. Guyot. Nouvelles récréations physiques et mathématiques, Paris, 1800.
Quoted from the book ‘Academician V. V. Petrov’, p. 62.
Quoted from the book ‘Academician V. V. Petrov’, pp. 212–213.
The archives of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, see also in the book ‘Academician V. V. Petrov’, p. 247.
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© 1983 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Kartsev, V.P. (1983). V. V. Petrov’s Hypothetical Experiment and Electrical Experiments of the 18th Century. In: Shea, W.R. (eds) Nature Mathematized. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6957-5_13
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