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Heinrich Geissler (born May 26, 1815, Igelshieb, Thuringia, Saxe-Meiningen [Germany]—died January 24, 1879, Bonn, Prussia [Germany]) was a German glassblower for whom the Geissler (mercury) pump and the Geissler tube are named. Geissler opened a shop in Bonn in 1854 to make scientific apparatus and devised his mercury air pump in 1855.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
A Geissler tube is a precursor to modern gas discharge tubes, demonstrating the principles of electrical glow discharge, akin to contemporary neon lights, and central to the discovery of the electron. [ 1 ]: 67 This device was developed in 1857 by Heinrich Geissler, a German physicist and glassblower. A Geissler tube is composed of a sealed ...
The Geissler Tube is a sealed glass cylinder of a unique design with a metal electrode at each end. The Geissler Tube was invented by the German glassblower and physicist, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Geissler (1814-1879) in 1857. Geissler tubes were the first gas discharge tubes. Each contains rarefied gasses such as neon or argon; conductive fluids; or ionizable minerals or metals. When voltage is...
- 7 in. L
- GlasswareScientific apparatus and instruments
- Physical Object
- electrodesglass (material)metal
HEINRICH GEISSLER (1814-1879), German physicist, was born at the village of Igelshieb in Saxe-Meiningen on the 26th of May 1814 and was educated as a glass-blower. In 1854 he settled at Bonn, where he speedily gained a high reputation for his skill and ingenuity of conception in the fabrication of chemical and physical apparatus.
- Geissler Tubes
- How A Geissler Tube Works
- The Difference Between Plucker and Geissler
- Hittorf’s Discovery
- William Crookes
- Crookes’ Tube
- References
Geissler tubes started pretty simply, they were skinny glass tubes with metal electrodes (platinum wires) at either end. The tubes were mostly evacuated (had air removed with a pump) and were filled with trace amounts of certain gasses or vapors. Geissler had just invented a mercury pump and his friend Rumhkorff was selling a device called an induc...
But how did it work? Well, when a high voltage is placed across the tube, some electrons are ripped free of their atoms (leaving positive ions, or atoms missing an electron) and the electrons go zipping towards the positive terminal. On the way, they recombine with the ions creating visible light. The color produced depends on the energy levels of ...
What made Plücker and Geissler’s experiment different is that they were not trying to create a spark in a vacuum or through gasses; they were trying (and succeeding) in using the voltage to electrify the gasses directly. Although Plücker was pleased with the beautiful lights that they were making he was mostly interested in how the light interacted...
Hittorf then immediately used this adjusted pump on a Geissler tube and found a strange result. It seemed like there was light coming from the negative electrode and if he made the electrode into a sharp point, this light would hit the far glass and make it glow, either green or blue depending on the type of glass. He proved that the light was comi...
Now we go to an English scientist named William Crookes. In later life, Crookes’s most distinguishable feature was his completely amazingly over the top mustache! Here is a caricature of him and here is a photo! Anyway, Crookes came from a truly enormous middle class family (his father had five children with his first wife and, ready for it, 16 chi...
In 1869, a talented 16 yr. old named Charles Gimingham became Crookes assistant and by 1876 created a vastly superior vacuum pump for his boss. Crookes then used this new pump on the Geissler tube and found very similar results to Hittorf, although at the higher vacuums the tube itself seemed black and only the glass at the end would glow. In addit...
Plücker “Ueber die Einwirkung des Magneten…” Annalen der Physik und Chemie vol. 103 (1858)p. 88 d’Albe, Fournier The Life of Sir William Crookesp. 16
- Kathy Joseph
Discusses the life and work of Heinrich Geissler and reports on his research in the area of vacuum technology. Published in: Proceedings of the IEEE ( Volume: 103 , Issue: 9 , September 2015 ) Page(s): 1672 - 1684
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Heinrich Geissler. Heinrich Geissler was born in 1814 in the village of Igelshieb in central Germany. His father was a glassblower who made intricate instruments such as barometers and thermometers. This familiarity would prove integral to the younger Geissler, who began winning awards for his own scientific devices in the mid-1800s.
