Hotline of power engineering specialists:
A presentation of the exhibition "The Bright Life of Alexander Lodygin" dedicated to the 170th anniversary of the birth of the first inventor of the incandescent lamp was held at IDGC of Centre - Tambovenergo division. It was attended by representatives of universities in the region and the Tambov Regional Museum of Local History, active members of the Council of Veterans and Young Power Engineers of the enterprise.
The event was opened by Vladimir Syschikov, Deputy General Director of IDGC of Centre - Tambovenergo division director. He noted that the main goal of the exhibition is to help preserve the memory of the great inventor not only in his small homeland, but also abroad. "Alexander Lodygin’s name today is known mainly in scientific circles. But we are talking about the man who was the first in the world to start the widespread use of electric lighting," the head of the enterprise stressed.
Alexander Lodygin was born 18 October 1847 in the village of Stenshino of Lipetsky district of the Tambov province (now Petrovsky district of the Tambov region). He studied at the Moscow Junker Infantry School, but then abandoned his military career, devoting his life to inventions and scientific discoveries in the field of electrical engineering. He worked on projects of an aircraft with an electric motor (electric plane) and a diving apparatus. At the same time, he conducted the first experiments with incandescent lamps. In 1874 he received a patent for this invention, later patented incandescent lamps in many countries of Europe, as well as in India and Australia. He worked in France and the USA, where he created new incandescent lamps, invented electric furnaces, electric cars, built factories and metro. Upon his return to Russia in 1907, he taught at the Electrotechnical Institute, was engaged in electrification, and with the outbreak of the First World War, he worked on a project with a vertical take-off aircraft. After the February Revolution of 1917 he emigrated to the US, where he lived the rest of his life.
The exposition opened at Tambovenergo consists of two parts. The first contains documents, photographs, as well as material sources relating to the childhood and youth of the inventor - for its replenishment the power engineers in their spare time organize an ethnographic expedition to his native village. The second part of the exposition tells about the formation of the scientist, his main discoveries and the years spent in exile in France and the USA.
It should be noted that the exhibition is only one of the events organized by Tambovenergo in the year of Alexander Lodygin’s anniversary. Earlier, within the framework of IDGC of Centre’s "Green Distribution Zone" project, the employees of the enterprise carried out landscaping near the granite memorable sign of the inventor, installed by Tambovenergo in his native village. By the memorable date the power engineers prepared a series of publications in federal and regional print media, as well as a set of lectures and seminars for schoolchildren and students on the life and work of the great scientist and his contribution to the development of Russia’s energy industry. Tambovenergo’s employees plan to participate in other commemorative events, organized both by the branch and by scientific and public organizations of the region.
