Otto von Guericke: biography. First experiments with vacuum Important experience of Otto von Guericke

Otto von Guericke(German: Otto von Guericke; 1602, Magdeburg - 1686, Hamburg) - German physicist, engineer and philosopher.

He studied law, mathematics and mechanics in Leipzig, Jena and Leiden. For some time he served as an engineer in Sweden. Since 1646 - burgomaster of Magdeburg. In 1650, he invented vacuum pumping and used his invention to study the properties of vacuum and the role of air in the combustion process and for human respiration. In 1654, he conducted a famous experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres, which proved the presence of air pressure; established the elasticity and weight of air, the ability to support combustion, and conduct sound.

In 1657, he invented a water barometer, with which in 1660 he predicted an approaching storm 2 hours before its appearance, thus going down in history as one of the first meteorologists.

In 1663, he invented one of the first electrostatic generators that produced electricity by friction - a ball of sulfur rubbed by hand. In 1672 he discovered that a charged ball crackled and glowed in the dark (he was the first to observe electroluminescence). In addition, he discovered the property of electrical repulsion of unipolarly charged objects.

Biography

Otto von Guericke was born into a family of wealthy Magdeburg townspeople. In 1617 he entered the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the University of Leipzig, but in 1619, due to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, he was forced to move to the University of Helmstedt, where he studied for several weeks. Then from 1621 to 1623 he studied jurisprudence at the University of Jena, and from 1623 to 1624 he studied exact sciences and fortification art at the University of Leiden. He completed his studies with a nine-month educational trip to England and France. In November 1625 he returned to Magdeburg, and the following year he married Margaret Alemann and was elected to the collegiate council of the city magistrate, a member of which he remained until old age. As an official he was responsible for construction, and in 1629 and 1630-1631 - also for the defense of the city.

Although Guericke himself did not share the sympathy of the inhabitants of Magdeburg for the Swedish Protestant king Gustav II Adolf, when in May the troops of the Catholic League under the leadership of Johann Tserclas Tilly stormed and destroyed the city, he lost his property and, almost dying, was captured near Fermersleben. From there, thanks to the mediation of Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Köthen, he was bought for three hundred thalers. Having moved with his family to Erfurt, Guericke became a fortification engineer in the service of Gustav II Adolf (he held the position until 1636).

In February 1632, the entire Guericke family returned to Magdeburg. For the next ten years, von Guericke carried out the restoration of the city, destroyed by fire in 1631. He also rebuilt his own home. Under Swedish and, from 1636, Saxon rule, he took part in the public affairs of Magdeburg. In 1641 he became the city treasurer, and in 1646 - burgomaster. He held this position for thirty years. In September 1642, Guericke began a rather dangerous and slippery diplomatic activity (continuing until 1663), going to the court of the Saxon Elector in Dresden to seek a softening of the harsh Saxon military regime in Magdeburg. He took part, in particular, in the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, in the work of the Peace Congress in Nuremberg (1649-1650) and in the dissolution of the Regensburg Reichstag (1653-1654). At this dissolution, Guericke's scientific and diplomatic interests coincided. By invitation, he showed several of his experiments before the highest dignitaries of the Holy Roman Empire, one of whom, Archbishop de Johann Philipp von Schonborn, bought one of Guericke's apparatuses and sent it to the Jesuit college in Würzburg. The professor of philosophy and mathematics of this institution, Caspar Schott, became interested in the new product and, from 1656, began to regularly correspond with Otto von Guericke. As a result, he first published his scientific work in an appendix to Schott’s book Mechanica Hydraulico-pneumatica, published in 1657. In 1664, Schott published the book Techica curiosa in Würzburg, which contained information about Guericke’s experiments. A year earlier, Guericke himself prepared for publication the manuscript of his fundamental work - Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio, but it was published in 1672 in Amsterdam.

German scientist, inventor and politician. He is best known for his work on the physics of vacuum, the creation of experimental techniques to demonstrate electrostatic repulsion, and his advocacy of the theories of “remote interaction” and “absolute space.”

The legendary "Magdeburg hemispheres" at one time created a considerable sensation in Germany. Physicist Otto von Guericke connected two hemispheres, pumped air out of them and demonstrated that the air presses on this structure with such force that even 16 horses cannot break the sphere. Experiments with vacuum, however, were by no means von Guericke’s only hobby - the physicist did a lot of useful things both for future generations of electrostatics specialists and as a public figure for the residents of Magdeburg.

Von Guericke was born in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1617 he became a student at Leipzig University. The Thirty Years' War prevented Otto from continuing his studies in Leipzig and forced him to seek success in other educational institutions in the country. Von Guericke completed his studies with a 9-month trip to France and England. Returning to Magdeburg in 1626, von Guericke got married.

Otto von Guericke did not share the townspeople's enthusiasm for Gustavus Adolphus, which, however, did not particularly help him during the subsequent fall of Magdeburg in May 1631. Von Guericke was lucky to survive, although he still lost his freedom and most of his fortune. He worked for some time as an engineer; His family managed to return to Magdeburg only in February 1632. For the next 10 years, von Guericke actively participated in the restoration of the largely destroyed city; Otto devoted a lot of time to social activities - he even had the chance to serve as burgomaster for some time. Often von Guericke took part in diplomatic missions.

In 1654, Otto von Guericke had the opportunity to demonstrate his experiments with vacuum to the highest ranks of the Holy Roman Empire.

rii. After some time, von Guericke's works attracted the attention of Robert Boyle; he at one time conducted similar research and was extremely interested in the German’s work.

Von Guericke continued to be quite active in scientific activities; Most of all, he concentrated on his “life’s work” - the book “Ottonis de Guericke Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio”. Otto carefully documented experiments with vacuum and electrostatics; Along the way, he was the first in the world to clearly demonstrate electrostatic repulsion. Von Guericke himself claimed that work on the book finally ended on May 14, 1663; publication, however, was delayed for as much as 9 years.

In the 60s of the 17th century, it became clear that all attempts by Magdeburg in general and von Guericke in particular to knock out the city's free status had failed; The townspeople signed an agreement according to which they accepted a garrison of Brandenburg soldiers within their walls and agreed to pay tribute to Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I (Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg). Von Guericke, however, benefited from this in many respects - the Elector was an active patron of the sciences. The "Experimenta Nova" that was published even contained a dedication to Friedrich Wilhelm; By that time, the scientist owed a lot to the Elector. In 1666, Otto von Guericke was also awarded the title of nobility by Emperor Leopold I. It was then that Otto changed his last name from “Gericke” to “Guericke” and added the prefix “von” to his name.

In 1667, von Guericke heeded the requests that had been coming in for quite some time and vacated the previously occupied civilian positions. In 1681, Otto von Guericke and his second wife Dorothea left Magdeburg to escape the outbreak of the plague; The couple settled with von Guericke's son, Hans Otto, in Hamburg. Otto von Guericke died in Hamburg; it happened on May 11, 1686. Von Guericke's body was buried in Magdeburg.

He studied law, mathematics and mechanics in Leipzig, Jena and Leiden. For some time he served as an engineer in Sweden. Since 1646 - burgomaster of Magdeburg. In 1650 he invented vacuum pumping and used his invention to study the properties of vacuum and the role of air in the combustion process and for human respiration. In 1654, he conducted a famous experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres, which proved the presence of air pressure; established the elasticity and weight of air, the ability to support combustion, and conduct sound.

In 1657, he invented a water barometer, with which in 1660 he predicted an approaching storm 2 hours before its appearance, thus going down in history as one of the first meteorologists.

In 1663 he invented one of the first electrostatic generators that produced electricity by friction - a ball of sulfur rubbed by hand. In 1672 he discovered that a charged ball crackled and glowed in the dark (he was the first to observe electroluminescence). In addition, he discovered the property of electrical repulsion of unipolarly charged objects.

Scientific activity

Despite such a clear inclination towards scientific pursuits, Otto von Guericke never shied away from the civic responsibilities assigned to him by his hometown and, having accepted the honorary position of burgomaster of the city of Magdeburg almost in the most troubled time for the country, he was forced to constantly leave to fulfill various diplomatic assignments; If we also add that he held this busy position for 32 years, and before that he had been in captivity, and in military service, and was engaged in the construction of fortifications and bridges, then one cannot help but be surprised at the persistence with which he devoted himself in his free days and hours to his favorite pursuits of physics and such a significant number of inventions and new experiments with which he enriched science and a detailed description of which he left in his famous book: “Ottonis de Guericke Experivmenta Nova (ut vacantus) Magdeburgica.”

As a physicist, Guericke was primarily an experimenter who fully understood the scientific significance of experiment, which in his time could be considered a sign of genius. In the 17th century, it was still very difficult to renounce the scholastic trend that had dominated science for so long and to accustom one’s mind to an independent assessment of observed phenomena. Among scientists, only a few could say like Guericke:

Experiments with vacuum

Not yet knowing anything about the invention of the mercury barometer (1643) and the so-called Torricelli void, Guericke persistently sought to destroy through experiment the ancient philosophical dispute about empty space. And so, around 1650, the result of this persistence was the invention of the air pump.

Guericke, as is known, at first did not consider it possible to pump out air directly and wanted to create an empty space in a hermetically sealed barrel by removing the water that filled it. For this purpose, he attached a pump to the bottom of the barrel, thinking that only with this arrangement of the device would the water follow the pump piston due to its gravity. From this we see that at first Guericke did not yet have a definite concept of atmospheric pressure and the elasticity of air in general. When this first attempt failed, since the outside air hissed into the resulting void through the cracks and pores of the barrel, Guericke tried to place his barrel in another, also filled with water, intending in this way to protect the void from air rushing into it from the outside. But this time, too, the experiment was unsuccessful, because water from the outer barrel, under the influence of atmospheric pressure, flowed through the pores into the inner one and filled the void. Then, finally, Guericke decided to apply a pump to directly pumping air out of a copper spherical vessel, still adhering to his false assumption that air, like water, could follow the pump piston only due to its gravity, so now the pump was screwed to the bottom of the vessel and located vertically. The result of pumping out was completely unexpected and frightened everyone present: the copper ball could not withstand the external pressure and was crumpled and flattened with a crash. This forced Guericke to prepare stronger and more regular shaped tanks for the next experiments. The inconvenient location of the pump soon forced Guericke to build a special tripod for the entire device and attach a lever to the piston; This is how the first air pump was constructed, which the author named Antlia pneumatica. Of course, the device was still very far from perfect and required at least three people to manipulate the piston and taps, immersed in water, to better isolate the resulting void from the outside air.

Robert Boyle, who made significant improvements to the pneumatic machine, considered Otto von Guericke to be its real inventor. And although Guericke, at the beginning of his research, mistakenly interpreted the action of his device (by gravity, and not by the elasticity of the air enclosed in a tank), nevertheless, he, apparently, well understood the impossibility of achieving absolute emptiness using an air pump.

Guericke should be considered the inventor of only the air vacuum pump: pressure pumps were known in antiquity, and their invention is attributed to Ctesibius, who lived in the 2nd century BC. e. in Alexandria. Blowguns were also already known to Guerick, but he came to the concept of air elasticity only after constructing his pump, based on many experiments. Obviously, this question, so elementary today, should be considered one of the most difficult for that time, and the establishment of the Boyle-Mariotte law around 1676 was one of the most important conquests of the human mind of that time.

The experiments that Guericke showed publicly with his air pumps brought him great fame. Various high-ranking officials made special trips to Magdeburg to personally verify the validity of all these new products. The well-known experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres was shown in 1654 in Regensburg during the Reichstag. Experience has proven the presence of air pressure. Other of his pneumatic experiments are still repeated in school physics lessons and described in textbooks.

One of Guericke's experiments was as follows: a ball filled with air and another, from which the air had been previously pumped out, communicated through a tube; then the air from the first ball entered the empty ball at such a rapid speed that Guerike showed the similarity of this phenomenon with earthly storms.

The experiment with a tightly tied bull's bladder, which swells and finally bursts under the bell of a pneumatic machine, was also invented at that time to demonstrate the elasticity of air. Having once understood these phenomena of elasticity, Guericke quickly moved on, and his conclusions were always distinguished by a strictly logical sequence. He soon began to prove that since air has weight, the atmosphere produces pressure on itself, and the lower layers of air at the surface of the earth, as the most compressed, should be the most dense. To clearly demonstrate this difference in elasticity, he came up with the following wonderful experiment: a ball filled with air was closed with a crane and transferred to a high tower; there, when opening the tap, it was noticed that some of the air came out of the balloon; on the contrary, if the ball was filled with air and locked at a height, and then moved down, then when the tap was opened, the air rushed inside the ball. Guericke understood very well that a necessary condition for the convincingness of this experiment was the constancy of temperature, and he took care that the balloon carried with air was “equally heated both at the bottom and at the top of the tower.” Based on similar experiments, he came to the conclusion that “the weight of a known volume of air is something very relative,” since this weight depends on the height above the surface of the earth. The result of all these considerations was the construction of a “manometer,” that is, “an instrument designed to measure the difference in density, or weight, of a given volume of air.” Nowadays we use this term to refer to a device used to measure the elasticity (pressure) of gases in millimeters of mercury. Robert Boyle, who described it in detail, gave Guericke’s device the name “static barometer” or “baroscope”, which is still used in our time. This device, based on Archimedes' law, consists of a large hollow ball, balanced using a balance beam with a small weight. In Guericke's baroscope, the ball had a diameter of about 3 meters. It was first described in a letter from Guericke to Caspar Schott () in 1661.

Water barometer

Earlier, around 1657, Guericke built his grandiose water barometer. While staying in Regensburg in 1654, he learned (from a monk, Magnus) about Torricelli's experiments. It is possible that this important news prompted him to take up the same issue, or perhaps he independently came to the invention of his water barometer, the design of which was closely related to his previous pneumatic experiments. Be that as it may, this device already existed in 1657, since there are indications that since that time the dependence of its readings on weather conditions has been observed. It consisted of a long (20 magd. cubits) copper tube attached to the outer wall of the three-story Guericke house. The lower end of the tube was immersed in a vessel with water, and the upper end, complemented by a glass tube, was equipped with a tap and could be connected to an air pump. When the air was pumped out, the water rose in the tube to a height of 19 cubits; then the tap was closed, and the barometer was disconnected from the pump. Soon, with the help of this device, Guericke discovered that atmospheric pressure was constantly changing, which is why he named his barometer with the words Semper vivum. Then, noticing the relationship between the height of the water in the tube and the state of the weather, he named it Wettermannchen. For greater effect, on the surface of the water in a glass tube there was a float in the shape of a human figure with an outstretched hand, which pointed to a table with inscriptions corresponding to various weather conditions; the rest of the device was deliberately disguised with wooden paneling. In his book, Guericke gave his barometer the name Anemoscopium. In 1660, he brought all the inhabitants of Magdeburg into extreme indignation by predicting a strong storm 2 hours before it began.

Studying the role of air in the combustion process and sound transmission

Choosing air as the subject of his research, Guericke tried to prove experimentally the necessity of its participation in such phenomena as the transmission of sound over a distance and combustion. He came up with the well-known experiment with a bell under the hood of an air pump, and on the issue of combustion he was significantly ahead of the philosophers of his time, who had the most vague ideas about this phenomenon. For example, Rene Descartes in 1644 tried to prove by reasoning that a lamp could burn in a hermetically sealed space for as long as desired.

Having made sure that a candle cannot burn in a tank from which the air has been pumped out, Guericke proved, using a device specially designed for this purpose, that the flame consumes the air, that is, that some part of the air (in his opinion, about 1/10) is destroyed by combustion. Let us remember that in this era there was no chemical information yet, and no one had any idea about the composition of the air; It is therefore not surprising that Guericke could not explain the fact that part of the air was absorbed during combustion and only said that the flame spoils the air, because his candle went out relatively quickly in a closed space. In any case, he was much closer to the truth than those 17th century chemists who created the phlogiston hypothesis.

Study of the effect of heat on air

Guericke also studied the effect of heat on air, and although he did not make any significant improvements in the design of his air thermometer compared to the then known instruments (which in his time in Italy were called caloris mensor), nevertheless we can safely say that he was the first meteorologist in time. Without touching on the controversial and essentially unimportant issue of the invention of the thermometer, which is most often attributed to Galileo, but also to Drebbel and the physician Sanctorius, we only note that its original form was extremely imperfect: firstly, because the readings of the device were not influenced only temperature, but also atmospheric pressure, and secondly, due to the lack of a specific unit (degree) for comparing thermal effects.

The (air) thermometer of that time consisted of a reservoir with a tube immersed with the open end in a vessel with water; the level of water raised in the tube varied, obviously, depending on the air temperature in the tank and on external atmospheric pressure. It is strange that Guericke, to whom this last influence should have been well known, did not pay attention to it; at least in his thermometer this influence was not eliminated. The device itself, intended exclusively for observing changes in outside air temperature and therefore placed like a barometer on the outer wall of the house, consisted of a siphon (metal) tube filled approximately half with alcohol; one end of the tube communicated with a large ball containing air, the other was open and contained a float, from which a thread ran through a block; At the end of the thread, a wooden figure swung freely in the air, pointing with its hand at a scale with 7 divisions. All the details of the device, except for the ball on which the inscription Perpetuum mobile flaunted, the figures and the scales, were also covered with boards. The extreme points on the scale were marked with the words: magnus frigus and magnus calor. The middle line had a special meaning, so to speak, climatic: it had to correspond to the air temperature at which the first autumn night frosts appear in Magdeburg.

From here we can conclude that although the first attempts to mark 0° on the thermometer scale belonged to the Florentine Academy (Del Cimento), famous in the history of experimental physics, Guericke also understood how important and necessary it is to have at least one constant point on the thermometric scale, and, as we We see that he tried to take a new step forward in this direction, choosing to regulate his thermometer an arbitrary line corresponding to the first autumn frosts.

Study of electricity

Let us now move on to another area of ​​physics, in which the name Guericke also enjoys well-deserved fame. We are talking about electricity, which at that time, called, so to speak, to life by the experimental research of Hilbert, represented in the form of a few fragmentary facts only an insignificant and uninteresting embryo of that grandiose force that was destined to win the attention of the entire civilized world and entangle the globe network of their guides.

Otto von Guericke is sometimes called only a witty inventor of physical instruments, striving to become famous among his contemporaries for his grandiose experiments and caring little about the progress of science. But Ferdinand Rosenberger (1845-1899) in his “History of Physics” quite rightly notes that such a reproach is without any basis, since Guericke did not have the exclusive goal of surprising the public. He was always guided by purely scientific interests and derived from his experiments not fantastic ideas, but real scientific conclusions. The best proof of this is his experimental studies of the phenomena of static electricity, which at that time - we repeat - few people were still interested in.

Wanting to repeat and test Hilbert's experiments, Guericke invented a device for obtaining an electrical state, which, although it cannot be called an electric machine in the real sense of the word, because it lacked a capacitor for collecting electricity developed by friction, nevertheless served as a prototype for all late arranged electrical discoveries. This, first of all, should include the discovery of electric repulsion, which was unknown to Gilbert.

To develop the electrical state, Guericke prepared a rather large ball of sulfur, which, through an axis threaded through, was set into rotation and simply rubbed with a dry hand. Having electrified this ball, Guericke noticed that the bodies attracted by the ball repel after touching; then he also noticed that a piece of fluff floating freely in the air, attracted and then pushed away from the ball, is attracted by other bodies. Guericke also proved that the electrical state is transmitted through a thread (linen); but at the same time, not knowing anything about insulators, he took the length of the thread to only one cubit and could only give it a vertical position. He was the first to observe an electric glow in the dark on his sulfur ball, but did not receive a spark; he also heard a faint crackling sound “in the sulfur ball” when he brought it close to his ear, but did not know what to attribute it to.

Study of magnetism

In the field of magnetism, Guericke also made several new observations. He found that the iron vertical bars in the window bars magnetized themselves, representing the north poles at the top and the south poles at the bottom, and showed that it was possible to slightly magnetize an iron strip by placing it in the direction of the meridian and hitting it with a hammer.

Research in astronomy

Also studied astronomy. He was a supporter of the heliocentric system. He developed his own cosmological system, which differed from the Copernican system by the assumption of the presence of infinite space in which the fixed stars are distributed. He believed that outer space is empty, but long-range forces act between celestial bodies and regulate their movement.

In philately

Germany stamp 1936

GDR stamp 1977

GDR stamp 1969

Germany stamp 2002

Aktobe region Alga district Marzhanbulak secondary school

Scientific Society of Students “Zhas Kanat”

Smirnov Sergey Andreevich

Kamzin Isazhan Myrzakhanovich

Subject:

Atmosphere pressure

Direction:

Scientific and technological progress - as a key link

economic growth

Section: technique

Supervisor: Esmagambetov

Karymsak Arystanuly,

Physics teacher

Scientific adviser:

Associate Professor Aktobe Regional

State University named after K. Zhubanov

candidate of physical sciences S.K. Tulepbergenov

Marzhanbulak-2013

I. Introduction

(About the air envelope of the Earth)

II. Research part

2.1. Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647)

2.2. Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782)

2.3. Historical experience of Otto von Guericke (1654)

2.4. Pascal's water barometer (1646)

2.5. Interesting experiments on atmospheric pressure

Simple experiments help to understand how Bernoulli's law works

II. Conclusion

IV. List of used literature

Introduction

(About the air envelope of the Earth)

Even in ancient times, people noticed that air exerts pressure on ground objects, especially during storms and hurricanes. He used this pressure, forcing the wind to move sailing ships and rotate the wings of windmills. However, for a long time it was not possible to prove that air has weight. Only in the 17th century was an experiment carried out that proved the weight of air. In Italy in 1640, the Duke of Tuscany decided to build a fountain on the terrace of his palace. The water for this fountain was supposed to be pumped from a nearby lake, but the water did not flow higher than 10.3m. The Duke turned to Galileo, then already a very old man, for clarification. The great scientist was confused and did not immediately find how to explain this phenomenon. And only Galileo’s student, Evangelista Torricelli, showed in 1643 that air has weight. Together with V. Viviani, Torricelli conducted the first experiment in measuring atmospheric pressure, inventing the Torricelli tube (the first mercury barometer), a glass tube in which there is no air. In such a tube the mercury rises to a height of about 760 mm, and he also showed that the pressure of the atmosphere is balanced by a column of water of 32 feet, or 10.3 m.

Atmospheric pressure is the pressure of the atmosphere on all objects in it and the Earth's surface. Atmospheric pressure is created by the gravitational attraction of air towards the Earth.

According to the decision of the International Geophysical Union (1951), it is generally accepted that the Earth's atmosphere consists of 5 layers: the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. These layers do not have clear boundaries everywhere; their thickness varies depending on the geographical latitude, place of observation and time.

Speaking about the importance of the atmosphere, it should be noted that the atmosphere protects all life on Earth from the destructive effects of ultraviolet rays, from the rapid heating of the Earth by the rays of the Sun and rapid cooling. It is also a sound transmitter. The atmosphere scatters sunlight, thereby illuminating those places where direct rays of the Sun do not reach.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN ON EARTH if the air atmosphere suddenly disappeared?

The temperature on Earth would be approximately -170 °C, all water areas would freeze, and the land would be covered with an icy crust. There would be complete silence, since sound does not travel in emptiness; the sky would turn black, since the color of the firmament depends on the air; There would be no twilight, dawn, white nights. The twinkling of stars would stop, and the stars themselves would be visible not only at night, but also during the day (we do not see them during the day due to the scattering of sunlight by air particles). Animals and plants would die.

On the earth's surface, atmospheric pressure varies from place to place and over time. Particularly important are the non-periodic changes in atmospheric pressure that determine the weather, associated with the emergence, development and destruction of slowly moving areas of high pressure (anticyclones) and relatively fast moving huge eddies (cyclones), in which low pressure prevails. Fluctuations in atmospheric pressure at sea level were noted within the range of 641 - 816 mm Hg. Art. (inside the tornado the pressure drops and can reach 560 mmHg).

Normal atmospheric pressure is a pressure of 760 mm Hg. at sea level at 0°C. (International Standard Atmosphere - ISA)(101,325 Pa). Every morning, weather reports report air pressure at sea level.
Why is it that atmospheric pressure measured on land is most often translated to sea level? The fact is that atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude and quite significantly. So at an altitude of 5000 m it is already about two times lower. Therefore, to obtain an idea of ​​the real spatial distribution of atmospheric pressure and to compare its value in different areas and at different altitudes, to compile synoptic maps, etc., the pressure is reduced to a single level, i.e. to sea level.
The atmospheric pressure measured at the weather station site located at an altitude of 187 m above sea level is on average 16-18 mmHg. Art. lower than below on the seashore. When you rise by 10.5 meters, the atmospheric pressure decreases by 1 mmHg.

Atmospheric pressure changes not only with altitude. At the same point on the earth's surface, atmospheric pressure either increases or decreases. The reason for atmospheric pressure fluctuations is that air pressure depends on its temperature. Air expands when heated. Warm air is lighter than cold air, so 1 m 3 of air at the same height weighs less than 1 m 3 of cold air. This means that the pressure of warm air on the earth's surface is less than that of cold air.

“Normal” atmospheric pressure is the pressure equal to the weight of a column of mercury 760 mm high at a temperature of 0.0 °C, at a latitude of 45 ° and at sea level. The basic unit of pressure in the SI system is the pascal [Pa]; 1 Pa= 1 N/m2. In the SI system 101325 Pa or 101.3 kPa or 0.1 MPa.

EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI(1608–1647)

Italian mathematician and physicist Evangelista Torricelli was born in Faenza into a poor family and raised by his uncle. He studied at a Jesuit college and then received a mathematical education in Rome. In 1641 Torricelli moved to Arcetri, where he helped Galileo in processing his works. From 1642, after the death of Galileo, court mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and at the same time professor of mathematics at the University of Florence.

Torricelli's most famous works are in the field of pneumatics and mechanics. In 1643, he invented a device for measuring atmospheric pressure - the barometer.

The presence of atmospheric pressure led people to confusion in 1638, when the Duke of Tuscany's idea to decorate the gardens of Florence with fountains failed - the water did not rise above 10.3 meters. The search for the reasons for this and experiments with a heavier substance - mercury, undertaken by Evangelista Torricelli led to the fact that in 1643 he proved that air has weight. With his rather simple experiment, Evangelista Torricelli measured atmospheric pressure and made the first conclusions about the pressure of a liquid column, which are recorded in the basic law of hydrostatics. In an experiment carried out in 1643, a thin glass tube was used, sealed at one end, which was filled with mercury, after which it was turned over and the open end was lowered into a glass bath, also filled with mercury (see figure). Only part of the mercury flowed into the trough, and at the sealed end of the tube a so-called Torricelli's void (in fact, this “emptiness” was filled with saturated mercury vapor, but their pressure at room temperature is much less than atmospheric pressure, so this area can be approximately called a void).

The observed effect indicated that the mercury was kept from completely pouring out by a certain force acting from the lower end of the tube. This force created atmospheric pressure opposing the weight of the liquid column.

Currently, atmospheric pressure equal to the pressure of a column of mercury 760 mm high at a temperature of 0 °C is usually called normal atmospheric pressure.

Substituting into this formula the values ​​p = 13595.1 kg/m 3 (mercury density at 0 °C), g = 9.80665 m/s 2 (gravitational acceleration) and h = 760 mm = 0.76 m (pillar height mercury corresponding to normal atmospheric pressure), we obtain the following value: P = p g h = 13595.1 kg/m 3 X 9.80665 m/s 2 X 0.76 m = 101,325 Pa.

This is normal atmospheric pressure.

The column of mercury in the tube always had the same height, equal to approximately 760 mm. Hence the unit of measurement for pressure is the millimeter of mercury (mmHg). Using the formula above we get that in Pascals

Torricelli discovered that the height of the mercury column in his experiment did not depend either on the shape of the tube or on its inclination. At sea level, the height of the mercury column has always been about 760mm.

The scientist suggested that the height of the liquid column is balanced by air pressure. Knowing the height of the column and the density of the liquid, you can determine the amount of atmospheric pressure. The correctness of Torricelli's assumption was confirmed in 1648 by Pascal's experiment on the Puig de Dome mountain. Pascal proved that a smaller column of air exerts less pressure. Due to the Earth's gravity and insufficient speed, air molecules cannot leave the near-Earth space. However, they do not fall on the surface of the Earth, but hover above it, because. are in continuous thermal motion.

Due to thermal motion and the attraction of molecules to the Earth, their distribution in the atmosphere is uneven. At low altitudes, every 12 m of ascent reduces atmospheric pressure by 1 mmHg. At high altitudes this pattern is broken.

This happens because the height of the air column exerting pressure decreases as it rises. In addition, in the upper layers of the atmosphere the air is less dense.

DANIEL BERNOULLI(1700-1782)

In the 18th century, mathematician and mechanic, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Daniil Bernoulli, conducted an experiment with a pipe of different thicknesses through which liquid flowed. Let us assume that liquid flows through a horizontal pipe, the cross-section of which is different in different places. Let us mentally select several sections in the pipe, their areas: S1 S2, S3. S4.

During a certain period of time t, a liquid of the same volume must pass through each of these sections. All the liquid that passes through the first section during time t must also pass through all other sections of smaller diameter during the same time. If this were not the case and less liquid passed through a section with area S3 during time t than through a section with area S1, then the excess liquid should have accumulated somewhere. But the liquid fills the pipe, and there is nowhere for it to accumulate. Note that we assume that the fluid is incompressible and has the same volume everywhere. How can the liquid that flowed through the first section “have time” to flow through a much smaller section with area S3 in the same time? Obviously, for this to happen, when passing through narrow parts of the pipe, the speed of fluid movement must be greater than when passing through wide parts.

A tube – a pressure gauge – is vertically soldered into pipe sections of different thicknesses. In narrow areas of the pipe, the height of the liquid column is less than in wide areas. This means that there is less pressure in narrow places.

The pressure of the liquid flowing in the pipe is greater in those parts of the pipe where its speed is lower, and, conversely, in those parts where the speed is higher, the pressure is lower. This is Bernoulli's Law.

In the wide part of the pipe, the speed is less than in the narrow part by as many times as the cross-sectional area 1 is greater than 2.

Let the fluid flow without friction through a pipe of variable cross-section:

In other words, equal volumes of liquid pass through all sections of the pipe, otherwise the liquid would either have to rupture somewhere or be compressed, which is impossible. During t through the section S 1 volume will pass

, and through the section S 2 – volume. But since these volumes are equal, then

The speed of fluid flow in a pipe of variable cross-section is inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area.

If the cross-sectional area has increased by 4 times, then the speed has decreased by the same amount, and vice versa, the same number of times the cross-section of the pipe has decreased, the speed of the flow of liquid or gas has increased by the same amount. Where is this speed change phenomenon observed? For example, on a river flowing into the sea, there is a decrease in speed, water from a bath - the speed increases, we observe a turbulent flow of water. If the speed is low, then the liquid flows as if divided into layers (“laminia” - layer). The flow is called laminar.

So, we found out that when a liquid flows from a narrow part to a wide part or vice versa, the speed changes, therefore, the liquid moves with acceleration. What causes acceleration? (Force (Newton's second law)). What force imparts acceleration to the fluid? This force can only be the difference in fluid pressure forces in the wide and narrow parts of the pipe.

Bernoulli's equation shows that the pressure of a flowing liquid or gas is greater where the velocity is less, and the pressure is less where the velocity of the flow is greater. This seemingly paradoxical conclusion is confirmed by direct experiments.

Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Daniil Bernoulli first came to this conclusion in 1726, and the law now bears his name.

It remains valid for the movement of liquid and for gases not limited by the walls of the pipe - in the free flow of liquid.

THE HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE OF OTTO VON GUERICKE (1654)

The German physicist Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) came to the conclusion about the existence of atmospheric pressure independently of Torricelli (about whose experiments he learned nine years late). While somehow pumping air out of a thin-walled metal ball, Guericke suddenly saw how this ball was flattened. Reflecting on the cause of the accident, he realized that the flattening of the ball occurred under the influence of ambient air pressure.

Having discovered atmospheric pressure, Guericke built a water barometer near the facade of his house in Magdeburg, in which a figure in the form of a man floated on the surface of the liquid, indicating the divisions marked on the glass.

In 1654, Guericke, wanting to convince everyone of the existence of atmospheric pressure, performed the famous experiment with the “Magdeburg hemispheres”. The demonstration of the experiment was attended by Emperor Ferdinand III and members of the Regensburg Reichstag. In their presence, the air was pumped out of the cavity between the two metal hemispheres folded together. At the same time, the forces of atmospheric pressure pressed these hemispheres so tightly to each other that several pairs of horses could not separate them. Below is the famous drawing by G. Schott, which depicts 16 horses, 8 on each side of the metal Magdeburg hemispheres, between which the vacuum. The hemispheres are pressed against each other by nothing more than atmospheric pressure, and this force is so great that even such a decent harness cannot tear the hemispheres away from each other.

PASCAL'S WATER BAROMETER (1646 g)

Torricelli's experiments interested many scientists - his contemporaries. When the French scientist Blaise Pascal learned about them, he repeated them with different liquids (oil, wine and water).

The figure shows a water barometer created by Pascal in 1646. The column of water, balancing the pressure of the atmosphere, turned out to be much higher than the column of mercury. It turned out to be 10.3 meters.

FUN EXPERIMENTS ON ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE

Let us consider a series of experiments related to the action of atmospheric pressure.
Air has weight:

Using a vacuum pump, pump out the air from the glass flask and balance the flask on a lever scale. Let's open the tap and let air into the flask, and we see that the balance of the scales has been disturbed. This experiment convincingly shows that air has weight. Therefore, air exerts pressure on all objects near the surface of the Earth. Atmospheric pressure is the pressure of the atmosphere on all objects in it and the Earth's surface. Atmospheric pressure is created gravitational attraction air to earth and thermal motion air molecules.

Inflating a children's balloon by pumping out air!?:

Why, when air is pumped out from under the pump bell located on its plate, does the chamber of a child’s balloon with a well-tied appendage begin to inflate?

Answer: Inside the chamber the pressure remains constant (atmospheric) all the time, but outside it decreases. Due to the pressure difference, the ball is “inflated”.

Experiment with a test tube with a rubber stopper:

You can perform a similar experiment with a test tube with a rubber stopper. When pumping air out from under the bell, does the stopper fly out of the bottle?! Why? Answer: The cork flies out due to the pressure difference: the pressure in the flask is atmospheric, but outside it, under the bell, it is reduced.

Another experiment with test tubes:

We take two such test tubes so that one of them can freely fit into the other. Pour some water into the wide one, and then insert a short, narrow test tube into it. If we now turn the test tubes over, we will see that the narrow test tube will not fall, but, on the contrary, as the water flows out, it will rise up, being drawn into the wide test tube.
Why is this happening?

Answer: The pressure inside the large test tube is less than the outside one; due to the flow of water, a void has formed there, so atmospheric pressure forces the small test tube inside the large one.

Upside down glass:

Fill an ordinary glass to the brim with water. Cover it with a piece of paper, cover it tightly with your hand, and turn the paper down. Carefully remove your hand, holding the glass by the bottom. Water does not pour out. Why is this happening?

Answer: Air pressure holds water. Air pressure spreads equally in all directions (according to Pascal's law), which means it also applies upward. The paper serves only to ensure that the surface of the water remains completely flat.

Experience with the Magdeburg hemispheres:

We take two homemade iron hemispheres (diameter 10 cm). Lubricate the edges of the hemispheres with liquid machine oil, lightly press them together and pump out the air using a vacuum pump. Let's close the tap and, as shown in the photo, hang a two-kilogram weight on them, the hemispheres do not come off. There is no air inside the hemisphere, or there is little of it, so external atmospheric pressure presses them tightly against each other and prevents them from tearing apart. In 1654, the German physicist Otto von Guericke, wanting to convince everyone of the existence of atmospheric pressure, carried out a famous experiment in Magdeburg with similar hemispheres with a diameter of about one meter, where eight pairs of horses could not tear them apart. In honor of this famous experiment, such hemispheres were called the “Magdeburg hemispheres.”

Torricelli barometer:

We take a thin glass tube, closed at one end, fill it with blue water (for better visibility) and then turn it over and lower the open end into a glass bath. In this case, some of the water will pour onto the cup until the neck of the tube closes and no further water pours out, since it is held in place by atmospheric pressure.

The Italian mathematician and physicist Evangelista Torricelli first performed a similar experiment with mercury in 1643: the mercury column in the tube had a height of approximately 760 mm. Such a device was later called a mercury barometer. The French scientist Blaise Pascal performed a similar experiment with water in 1646; the column of water, balancing the pressure of the atmosphere, turned out to be much higher than the column of mercury. It turned out to be 10.3 meters.

The photo shows how to make a simple automatic bird drinker using atmospheric pressure. To do this, it is enough to somehow vertically secure a plastic bottle filled with water with the neck down and place a flat dish underneath. When the birds drink water, the water from the bottle will pour out enough to cover the neck of the bottle.

How does a syringe work?

As you can see in the photo, water moves behind the piston. Atmospheric pressure forces the liquid into the syringe.

We transfer water with a leaky mug:

Is it possible to transfer water with a leaky mug? We answer, yes it is possible! To do this, just tightly close the top of the mug with something and you can transfer the water; atmospheric pressure will prevent the water from spilling out. We made such a device for the experiment, as can be seen in the photograph, from an empty tin can.

SIMPLE EXPERIMENTS HELP YOU UNDERSTAND HOW BERNOULLI'S LAW OPERATES:

Experience 1:

We press the plates and petals, pushing them away with an air stream!:

When we blow air between the plates and the petals, instead of moving apart, they press against each other. This happens because the air speed between the plates and petals increases, and the pressure between them decreases compared to atmospheric pressure. This pressure difference presses them.

Experiment 2: Floating ball:

E If you put a light tennis ball into a stream of air, it will “dance” in the stream, even if it is positioned slightly obliquely. Why? The speed of the air stream created by the hair dryer is high, which means the pressure in this area is low. The air speed in the entire room is low, which means the pressure is high. The high pressure area will not allow the ball to fall from the low pressure area.

Experiment 3: Collision of two boats:

Z Let's let two boats go in the same direction. They will start to get closer and collide.

Between the sides it looks like a water channel.

In the narrow place between the boats, the pressure is lower than in the space around them; the higher pressure of the surrounding water brings them closer together and pushes them together.

Historical reference: It was Bernoulli's law that made it possible to understand why in 1912 the small armored cruiser Gauk, passing by the largest ship in the world, Olympic, when the ships took the position as shown in the figure, as if obeying some invisible force, Gauk suddenly turned his nose to the “Olympic”, and without obeying the steering wheel, moved straight towards it and made a large hole in the side of the “Olympic”. In the same year, the Olympic's twin, the Titanic, sank, unable to avoid a collision with an iceberg.

What do you think caused the shipwreck? In this case, a channel with water flowing in the opposite direction was formed between ships moving in one direction. And in a stream of water the pressure is less than around it, in a resting ocean. The huge pressure difference forced the lighter ship to crash into the “floating city” Olympic, and therefore the Titanic was unable to avoid a collision with the iceberg. This example shows that the Bernoulli phenomenon occurs not only in the atmosphere, but also in the sea.

CONCLUSION

We live at the bottom of a huge ocean of air called the atmosphere. The word is (“atmos” - air, “sphere” - ball) introduced into the Russian language by M.Yu. Lomonosov.

If a person does not feel air pressure, because external and internal pressure are balanced, then the pressure manifests itself in a situation where there is no pressure nearby or there is very little pressure.

We have collected a large amount of historical and theoretical material on atmospheric pressure. Qualitative experiments were carried out that confirmed the known properties of atmospheric pressure.

However, the idea of ​​our work is not to learn how to measure atmospheric pressure, but to show that it exists. Only one device, “Pascal’s Ball,” is produced on an industrial basis to demonstrate the law of pressure propagation inside liquids and gases. We have made many simple instruments based on the action of atmospheric pressure and showing the existence of atmospheric pressure. Based on these devices, you can introduce the concept of atmospheric pressure and show the effect of atmospheric pressure in entertaining experiments.

The manufacture of devices does not require scarce materials. The design of the devices is extremely simple, the dimensions and parameters do not require special precision, and they fit well with the existing devices in the physics classroom.

The results of our work can be used to demonstrate the properties of atmospheric pressure in lessons and elective clubs in physics.

LITERATURE

1. “Experimental and practical orientation in teaching physics” Compiled by: K.A. Esmagambetov; M.G.Mukashev, Aktobe, 2002, 46 pages.

2. K.A. Esmagambetov “Okytudyn ush alshemdik adistemelik zhuyesi: experimentalist zertteu men natizhe.” Aktobe, 2010.- 62 bet.

3. P.L.Golovin. School physics and technology club. M.: "Enlightenment" 1991

4. S.A. Khoroshavin. Physical and technical modeling. M.: Education 1988. – 207 pp.

5. Modern physics lesson in high school. Edited by V.G. Razumovsky,

L.S. Khizhnyakova M.: “Enlightenment” 1983 – 224 pp.

6. E.N. Goryachkin. Laboratory equipment and craft techniques. M.: "Enlightenment"

1969. –472 pp.

7. Journal Physics at school No. 6 1984 S.A. Khoroshovin “Demonstration experiment as a source of student knowledge” p.56.

Producing electricity by friction - a ball of sulfur rubbed by hand. In 1672 he discovered that a charged ball crackled and glowed in the dark (he was the first to observe electroluminescence). In addition, he discovered the property of electrical repulsion of unipolarly charged objects.

Biography

Otto von Guericke was born into a family of wealthy Magdeburg townspeople. In 1617 he entered the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the University of Leipzig, but in 1619, due to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, he was forced to move to the University of Helmstedt, where he studied for several weeks. Then from 1621 to 1623 he studied jurisprudence at the University of Jena, and from 1623 to 1624 he studied exact sciences and fortification art at the University of Leiden. He completed his studies with a nine-month educational trip to England and France. In November 1625 he returned to Magdeburg, and the following year he married Margaret Alemann and was elected to the collegial council of the city magistrate, a member of which he remained until old age. As an official he was responsible for construction, and in 1629 and 1630-1631 - also for the defense of the city.

Although Guericke himself did not share the sympathies of the inhabitants of Magdeburg for the Swedish Protestant king Gustav II Adolf, when in May the troops of the Catholic League under the leadership of Johann Tserclas Tilly stormed and destroyed the city, he lost his property and, almost dying, was captured near Fermersleben. From there, thanks to the mediation of Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Köthen, he was bought for three hundred thalers. Having moved with his family to Erfurt, Guericke became a fortification engineer in the service of Gustav II Adolf (in office until 1636).

In February 1632, the entire Guericke family returned to Magdeburg. For the next ten years, von Guericke carried out the restoration of the city, destroyed by fire in 1631. He also rebuilt his own home. Under Swedish and, from 1636, Saxon rule, he took part in the public affairs of Magdeburg. In 1641 he became the city treasurer, and in 1646 - burgomaster. He held this position for thirty years. In September 1642, Guericke began a rather dangerous and slippery diplomatic activity (continuing until 1663), going to the court of the Saxon Elector in Dresden to seek a softening of the harsh Saxon military regime in Magdeburg. He took part, in particular, in the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia, in the work of the Peace Congress in Nuremberg (1649-1650) and in the dissolution of the Regensburg Reichstag (1653-1654). At this dissolution, Guericke's scientific and diplomatic interests coincided. By invitation, he showed several of his experiments before the highest dignitaries of the Holy Roman Empire, one of whom, Archbishop de Johann Philipp von Schönborn, bought one of Guericke's apparatuses and sent it to the Jesuit collegium in Würzburg. The professor of philosophy and mathematics of this institution, Caspar Schott, became interested in the new product and, from 1656, began to regularly correspond with Otto von Guericke. As a result, he published his scientific work for the first time in the appendix to Schott’s book , published in 1657. In 1664, Schott published a book in Würzburg Techica curiosa, which contained information about Guericke's experiments. A year earlier, Guericke himself prepared for publication the manuscript of his fundamental work - Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio, but it was published in 1672 in Amsterdam.

In 1652 (seven years after the death of his first wife) he married Dorothea Lentke, the daughter of his colleague in the service, Steffan Lentke, and had three children with her: daughter Anna Katharina and sons Hans Otto and Jacob Christoph. On January 4, 1666, Kaiser Leopold I granted the scientist a title of nobility.

Air pump

Guericke at first did not consider it possible to pump out the air directly and wanted to create an empty space in a hermetically sealed barrel by removing the water that filled it. For this purpose, he attached a pump to the bottom of the barrel, thinking that only with this arrangement of the device would the water follow the pump piston due to its gravity. From this we see that at first Guericke did not yet have a definite concept of atmospheric pressure and the elasticity of air in general. When this first attempt failed, since the outside air hissed into the resulting void through the cracks and pores of the barrel, Guericke tried to place his barrel in another, also filled with water, intending in this way to protect the void from air rushing into it from the outside. But this time, too, the experiment was unsuccessful, since water from the outer barrel, under the influence of atmospheric pressure, flowed through the pores into the inner one and filled the void. Then, finally, Guericke decided to apply the pump to directly pumping air out of the copper spherical vessel, still adhering to his false assumption that air, like water, could follow the pump piston only due to its gravity, so now the pump was screwed to the bottom of the vessel and located vertically. The result of pumping out was completely unexpected and frightened everyone present: the copper ball could not withstand the external pressure and was crumpled and flattened with a crash. This forced Guericke to prepare stronger and more regular shaped tanks for the next experiments. The inconvenient location of the pump soon forced Guericke to build a special tripod for the entire device and attach a lever to the piston; in this way the first air pump was constructed, named by the author Antlia pneumatica. Of course, the device was still very far from perfect and required at least three people to manipulate the piston and taps, immersed in water, to better isolate the resulting void from the outside air.

Study of the effect of heat on air

Guericke also studied the effect of heat on air, and although he did not make any significant improvements in the design of his air thermometer compared to the then known instruments (which in his time in Italy were called caloris mensor), nevertheless we can safely say that he was the first meteorologist in time. Without touching on the controversial and essentially unimportant issue of the invention of the thermometer, which is most often attributed to Galileo, but also to Drebbel and the physician Sanctorius, we only note that its original form was extremely imperfect: firstly, because the readings of the device were not influenced only temperature, but also atmospheric pressure, and secondly, due to the lack of a specific unit (degree) for comparing thermal effects.

The (air) thermometer of that time consisted of a reservoir with a tube immersed with the open end in a vessel with water; the level of water raised in the tube varied, obviously, depending on the air temperature in the tank and on external atmospheric pressure. It is strange that Guericke, to whom this last influence should have been well known, did not pay attention to it; at least in his thermometer this influence was not eliminated. The device itself, intended exclusively for observing changes in outside air temperature and therefore placed like a barometer on the outer wall of the house, consisted of a siphon (metal) tube filled approximately half with alcohol; one end of the tube communicated with a large ball containing air, the other was open and contained a float, from which a thread ran through a block; At the end of the thread, a wooden figure swung freely in the air, pointing with its hand at a scale with 7 divisions. All details of the device, except for the ball on which the inscription Perpetuum mobile was displayed, figures and scales, were also covered with boards. The extreme points on the scale were marked with the words: magnus frigus and magnus calor. The middle line had a special meaning, so to speak, climatic: it had to correspond to the air temperature at which the first autumn night frosts appear in Magdeburg.

From this we can conclude that although the first attempts to mark 0° on the thermometer scale belonged to the Florentine Academy (Del Cimento), famous in the history of experimental physics, Guericke also understood how important and necessary it is to have at least one constant point on the thermometric scale, and, as we We see that he tried to take a new step forward in this direction, choosing to regulate his thermometer an arbitrary line corresponding to the first autumn frosts.

Study of electricity

Let us now move on to another area of ​​physics, in which the name Guericke also enjoys well-deserved fame. We are talking about electricity, which at that time, called, so to speak, to life by the experimental research of Hilbert, represented in the form of several fragmentary facts only an insignificant and uninteresting embryo of that grandiose force that was destined to win the attention of the entire civilized world and entangle the globe network of their guides.

Otto von Guericke is sometimes called only a witty inventor of physical instruments, striving to become famous among his contemporaries for his grandiose experiments and caring little about the progress of science. But Ferdinand Rosenberger (1845-1899) in his “History of Physics” quite rightly notes that such a reproach is without any basis, since Guericke did not have the exclusive goal of surprising the public. He was always guided by purely scientific interests and derived from his experiments not fantastic ideas, but real scientific conclusions. The best proof of this is his experimental studies of the phenomena of static electricity, which at that time - we repeat - few people were interested in.

Wanting to repeat and test Hilbert's experiments, Guericke invented a device for obtaining an electrical state, which, although it cannot be called an electric machine in the real meaning of the word, because it lacked a capacitor for collecting electricity developed by friction, nevertheless served as a prototype for all late arranged electrical discoveries. This, first of all, should include the discovery of electric repulsion, which was unknown to Gilbert.

To develop the electrical state, Guericke prepared a rather large ball of sulfur, which, through an axis threaded through, was set into rotation and simply rubbed with a dry hand. Having electrified this ball, Guericke noticed that the bodies attracted by the ball repel after touching; then he also noticed that a piece of fluff floating freely in the air, attracted and then pushed away from the ball, is attracted by other bodies. Guericke also proved that the electrical state is transmitted through a thread (linen); but at the same time, not knowing anything about insulators, he took the length of the thread to only one cubit and could only give it a vertical position. He was the first to observe an electric glow in the dark on his sulfur ball, but did not receive a spark; he also heard a faint crackling sound “in the sulfur ball” when he brought it close to his ear, but did not know what to attribute it to.

Study of magnetism

In the field of magnetism, Guericke also made several new observations. He found that the iron vertical bars in the window bars magnetized themselves, representing the north poles at the top and the south poles at the bottom, and showed that it was possible to slightly magnetize an iron strip by placing it in the direction of the meridian and hitting it with a hammer.

Research in astronomy

Also studied astronomy. He was a supporter of the heliocentric system. He developed his own cosmological system, which differed from the Copernican system by the assumption of the presence of infinite space in which the fixed stars are distributed. He believed that outer space is empty, but long-range forces act between celestial bodies and regulate their movement.

In philately

DR 1936 608 Otto von Guericke.jpg

Germany stamp 1936

Stamps of Germany (DDR) 1977, MiNr 2200.jpg

GDR stamp 1977

Stamps of Germany (DDR) 1969, MiNr 1514.jpg

GDR stamp 1969

Stamp Germany 2002 MiNr2282 Otto von Guericke.jpg

Germany stamp 2002

Memory

Proceedings

• Guericke, Otto. Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio, 1672. Available in "".

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Notes

1. , With. 124.
2. in: Gaspar Schott, Mechanica Hydraulic-pneumatica(Würzburg, (Germany): Henrick Pigrin, 1657), pp. 441-488.
3. Schneider, Ditmar (2002). Otto von Guericke: ein Leben für die alte Stadt Magdeburg (in German) (3., bearb. und erw. Aufl. ed.). Stuttgart: Teubner: Teubner. ISBN 3-519-25153-1, p. 144
4. Walther Kiaulehn: Die eisernen Engel. Eine Geschichte der Maschinen von der Antike bis zur Goethezeit. Berlin, 1935, Deutscher Verlag, neu aufgelegt 1953 im Rowohlt Verlag
5. This device, very well conceived, consisted of a hermetically sealed tank in which a burning candle was placed, a funnel-shaped vessel with water, through the bottom of which passed a tube from the tank protruding above the surface of the water, and finally - of a glass cap installed upside down and immersed with its edges in water over the open ends of the tube. When a burning candle was placed in a reservoir of air, the latter first expanded due to heating and, through a connecting tube, displaced part of the water from under the hood; then, while the candle could burn, a rise in the water level in the hood was noticed, and this clearly proved that some of the air was destroyed during combustion.
6. Until half of the 17th century, people could do without any instrument for measuring heat. In ancient times, thermometers were also apparently completely unknown.
7. The Florentine academicians were the first to construct a real type (alcohol) thermometer, with a sealed upper end. The temperature of the deep cellar was first taken as a constant point. Subsequently, only this point began to be taken as the freezing temperature of water.
8. The second constant point, without which, obviously, the concept of a degree could not become completely defined and the readings of various instruments could not be compared, was proposed to be adopted only at the beginning of the 18th century by Amonton and indicated the boiling point of water for this point.
9. Only after 1745, when the property of the Leyden jar was discovered (by Muschenbruck and von Kleist), electrical phenomena gained greater popularity, and various experiments were shown in squares and streets.
10. The first person to add a capacitor to an electric machine was a physics professor. Bose (in Witterberg) [specify], around 1740. The original condenser was a lead pipe held in the hand of a person, insulated from the floor.
11. The electric spark was first obtained (from rubbed amber) by Dr. Walleme in 1700, and a little later, around 1710, Gauxby obtained sparks an inch long, using a modified Guericke device, in which the sulfur ball was replaced by a glass one.

Literature

• Kudryavtsev, P. S.. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Education, 1982. - 448 p.
• Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In 30 vols.
• Kauffeld A.// Historical and astronomical studies, vol. XI. - M., 1972. - P. 221-236.
• Borisov V. P. The invention of the vacuum pump and the collapse of the dogma of “fear of emptiness” (400 years since the birth of Otto von Guericke) // Questions of natural science and technology. - 2002. - No. 4.
• // V.O.F.E.M. . - 1886. - No. 6.9. - pp. 119-124,191-195.
• Khramov Yu. A. Otto von Guericke (Guericke Otto von) // Physicists: Biographical Reference / Ed. A. I. Akhiezer. - Ed. 2nd, rev. and additional - M.: Science, 1983. - P. 80-81. - 400 s. - 200,000 copies.(in translation)

Excerpt characterizing Guericke, Otto von

“Oh, disgusting ones,” he said with disgust.
In the light of the sparks, Bolkhovitinov saw the young face of Shcherbinin with a candle and in the front corner a still sleeping man. It was Konovnitsyn.
When the brimstones lit up with a blue and then a red flame on the tinder, Shcherbinin lit a tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the Prussians ran, gnawing it, and examined the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was covered in dirt and, wiping himself with his sleeve, smeared it on his face.
-Who is informing? - said Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.
“The news is true,” said Bolkhovitinov. - And the prisoners, and the Cossacks, and the spies - they all unanimously show the same thing.
“There’s nothing to do, we have to wake him up,” said Shcherbinin, getting up and approaching a man in a nightcap, covered with an overcoat. - Pyotr Petrovich! - he said. Konovnitsyn did not move. - To the main headquarters! – he said, smiling, knowing that these words would probably wake him up. And indeed, the head in the nightcap rose immediately. On Konovnitsyn’s handsome, firm face, with feverishly inflamed cheeks, for a moment there remained the expression of dreams of a dream far from the present situation, but then suddenly he shuddered: his face took on its usually calm and firm expression.
- Well, what is it? From whom? – he asked slowly, but immediately, blinking in the light. Listening to the officer’s report, Konovnitsyn printed it out and read it. As soon as he had read it, he lowered his feet in woolen stockings onto the earthen floor and began to put on his shoes. Then he took off his cap and, combing his temples, put on his cap.
-Are you there soon? Let's go to the brightest.
Konovnitsyn immediately realized that the news brought was of great importance and that there was no time to delay. Whether it was good or bad, he did not think or ask himself. He wasn't interested. He looked at the whole matter of war not with his mind, not with reasoning, but with something else. There was a deep, unspoken conviction in his soul that everything would be fine; but that you don’t need to believe this, and even more so you don’t need to say this, but you just need to do your job. And he did this work, giving it all his strength.
Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn, just like Dokhturov, only as if out of decency was included in the list of so-called heroes of the 12th year - the Barclays, Raevskys, Ermolovs, Platovs, Miloradovichs, just like Dokhturov, enjoyed the reputation of a person of very limited abilities and information, and, like Dokhturov, Konovnitsyn never made plans for battles, but was always where it was most difficult; he always slept with the door open since he was appointed general on duty, ordering everyone sent to wake him up, he was always under fire during the battle, so Kutuzov reproached him for this and was afraid to send him, and was, like Dokhturov, alone one of those inconspicuous gears that, without rattling or making noise, constitute the most essential part of the machine.
Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night, Konovnitsyn frowned, partly from the intensifying headache, partly from the unpleasant thought that came into his head about how this whole nest of staff, influential people would now be agitated at this news, especially Bennigsen, who was after Tarutin at knifepoint with Kutuzov; how they will propose, argue, order, cancel. And this premonition was unpleasant for him, although he knew that he could not live without it.
Indeed, Tol, to whom he went to tell the new news, immediately began to express his thoughts to the general who lived with him, and Konovnitsyn, who listened silently and tiredly, reminded him that he had to go to his Serene Highness.

Kutuzov, like all old people, slept little at night. He often dozed off unexpectedly during the day; but at night, without undressing, lying on his bed, he mostly did not sleep and thought.
So he lay now on his bed, leaning his heavy, large, disfigured head on his plump arm, and thought, with one eye open, peering into the darkness.
Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the sovereign and had the most power in the headquarters, avoided him, Kutuzov was calmer in the sense that he and his troops would not be forced to again participate in useless offensive actions. The lesson of the Tarutino battle and its eve, painfully memorable for Kutuzov, should also have had an effect, he thought.
“They must understand that we can only lose by acting offensively. Patience and time, these are my heroes!” – thought Kutuzov. He knew not to pick an apple while it was green. It will fall on its own when it is ripe, but if you pick it green, you will spoil the apple and the tree, and you will set your teeth on edge. He, as an experienced hunter, knew that the animal was wounded, wounded as only the entire Russian force could wound, but whether it was fatal or not was a question that had not yet been clarified. Now, according to the dispatches of Lauriston and Berthelemy and according to the reports of the partisans, Kutuzov almost knew that he was mortally wounded. But more evidence was needed, we had to wait.
“They want to run and see how they killed him. Wait and see. All maneuvers, all attacks! - he thought. - For what? Everyone will excel. There's definitely something fun about fighting. They are like children from whom you can’t get any sense, as was the case, because everyone wants to prove how they can fight. That's not the point now.
And what skillful maneuvers all these offer me! It seems to them that when they invented two or three accidents (he remembered the general plan from St. Petersburg), they invented them all. And they all have no number!”
The unresolved question of whether the wound inflicted in Borodino was fatal or not fatal had been hanging over Kutuzov’s head for a whole month. On the one hand, the French occupied Moscow. On the other hand, undoubtedly with his whole being Kutuzov felt that that terrible blow, in which he, together with all the Russian people, strained all his strength, should have been fatal. But in any case, proof was needed, and he had been waiting for it for a month, and the more time passed, the more impatient he became. Lying on his bed on his sleepless nights, he did the very thing that these young generals did, the very thing for which he reproached them. He came up with all possible contingencies in which this certain, already accomplished death of Napoleon would be expressed. He came up with these contingencies in the same way as young people, but with the only difference that he did not base anything on these assumptions and that he saw not two or three, but thousands. The further he thought, the more of them appeared. He came up with all kinds of movements of the Napoleonic army, all or parts of it - towards St. Petersburg, against it, bypassing it, he came up with (which he was most afraid of) and the chance that Napoleon would fight against him with his own weapons, that he would remain in Moscow , waiting for him. Kutuzov even dreamed up the movement of Napoleon’s army back to Medyn and Yukhnov, but one thing he could not foresee was what happened, that crazy, convulsive rushing of Napoleon’s army during the first eleven days of his speech from Moscow - the throwing that made it possible something that Kutuzov still did not dare to think about even then: the complete extermination of the French. Dorokhov's reports about Broussier's division, news from the partisans about the disasters of Napoleon's army, rumors about preparations for departure from Moscow - everything confirmed the assumption that the French army was defeated and was about to flee; but these were only assumptions that seemed important to young people, but not to Kutuzov. With his sixty years of experience, he knew what weight should be attributed to rumors, he knew how capable people who want something are of grouping all the news so that they seem to confirm what they want, and he knew how in this case they willingly miss everything that contradicts. And the more Kutuzov wanted this, the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question occupied all his mental strength. Everything else was for him just the usual fulfillment of life. Such habitual fulfillment and subordination of life were his conversations with staff, letters to m me Stael, which he wrote from Tarutin, reading novels, distributing awards, correspondence with St. Petersburg, etc. n. But the death of the French, foreseen by him alone, was his spiritual, only desire.
On the night of October 11, he lay with his elbow on his hand and thought about it.
There was a stir in the next room, and the steps of Tolya, Konovnitsyn and Bolkhovitinov were heard.
- Hey, who's there? Come in, come in! What's new? – the field marshal called out to them.
While the footman lit the candle, Tol told the contents of the news.
- Who brought it? - asked Kutuzov with a face that struck Tolya, when the candle lit, with its cold severity.
“There can be no doubt, your lordship.”
- Call him, call him here!
Kutuzov sat with one leg hanging off the bed and his big belly leaning on the other, bent leg. He squinted his seeing eye to better examine the messenger, as if in his features he wanted to read what was occupying him.
“Tell me, tell me, my friend,” he said to Bolkhovitinov in his quiet, senile voice, covering the shirt that had opened on his chest. - Come, come closer. What news did you bring me? A? Has Napoleon left Moscow? Is it really so? A?
Bolkhovitinov first reported in detail everything that was ordered to him.
“Speak, speak quickly, don’t torment your soul,” Kutuzov interrupted him.
Bolkhovitinov told everything and fell silent, awaiting orders. Tol began to say something, but Kutuzov interrupted him. He wanted to say something, but suddenly his face squinted and wrinkled; He waved his hand at Tolya and turned in the opposite direction, towards the red corner of the hut, blackened by images.
- Lord, my creator! You heeded our prayer...” he said in a trembling voice, folding his hands. - Russia is saved. Thank you, Lord! - And he cried.

From the time of this news until the end of the campaign, all of Kutuzov’s activities consisted only in using power, cunning, and requests to keep his troops from useless offensives, maneuvers and clashes with the dying enemy. Dokhturov goes to Maloyaroslavets, but Kutuzov hesitates with the entire army and gives orders to cleanse Kaluga, retreat beyond which seems very possible to him.
Kutuzov retreats everywhere, but the enemy, without waiting for his retreat, runs back in the opposite direction.
Historians of Napoleon describe to us his skillful maneuver at Tarutino and Maloyaroslavets and make assumptions about what would have happened if Napoleon had managed to penetrate the rich midday provinces.
But without saying that nothing prevented Napoleon from going to these midday provinces (since the Russian army gave him the way), historians forget that Napoleon’s army could not be saved by anything, because it already carried in itself the inevitable conditions death. Why is this army, which found abundant food in Moscow and could not hold it, but trampled it underfoot, this army, which, having come to Smolensk, did not sort out the food, but plundered it, why could this army recover in the Kaluga province, inhabited by those the same Russians as in Moscow, and with the same property of fire to burn what they light?
The army could not recover anywhere. Since the Battle of Borodino and the sack of Moscow, it already carried within itself the chemical conditions of decomposition.
The people of this former army fled with their leaders without knowing where, wanting (Napoleon and each soldier) only one thing: to personally extricate themselves as quickly as possible from that hopeless situation, which, although unclear, they were all aware of.
That is why, at the council in Maloyaroslavets, when, pretending that they, the generals, were conferring, presenting different opinions, the last opinion of the simple-minded soldier Mouton, who said what everyone thought, that it was only necessary to leave as soon as possible, closed all their mouths, and no one , even Napoleon, could not say anything against this universally recognized truth.
But although everyone knew that they had to leave, there was still the shame of knowing that they had to run. And an external push was needed that would overcome this shame. And this push came at the right time. This was what the French called le Hourra de l'Empereur [imperial cheer].
The next day after the council, Napoleon, early in the morning, pretending that he wanted to inspect the troops and the field of the past and future battle, with a retinue of marshals and a convoy, rode along the middle of the line of troops. The Cossacks, snooping around the prey, came across the emperor himself and almost caught him. If the Cossacks did not catch Napoleon this time, then what saved him was the same thing that was destroying the French: the prey that the Cossacks rushed to, both in Tarutino and here, abandoning people. They, not paying attention to Napoleon, rushed to the prey, and Napoleon managed to escape.
When les enfants du Don [the sons of the Don] could catch the emperor himself in the middle of his army, it was clear that there was nothing more to do but to flee as quickly as possible along the nearest familiar road. Napoleon, with his forty-year-old belly, no longer feeling his former agility and courage, understood this hint. And under the influence of the fear that he gained from the Cossacks, he immediately agreed with Mouton and gave, as historians say, the order to retreat back to the Smolensk road.
The fact that Napoleon agreed with Mouton and that the troops went back does not prove that he ordered this, but that the forces that acted on the entire army, in the sense of directing it along the Mozhaisk road, simultaneously acted on Napoleon.

When a person is in motion, he always comes up with a goal for this movement. In order to walk a thousand miles, a person needs to think that there is something good beyond these thousand miles. You need an idea of ​​the promised land in order to have the strength to move.
The promised land during the French advance was Moscow; during the retreat it was the homeland. But the homeland was too far away, and for a person walking a thousand miles, he certainly needs to say to himself, forgetting about the final goal: “Today I will come forty miles to a place of rest and lodging for the night,” and on the first journey this place of rest obscures the final goal and concentrates on yourself all the desires and hopes. Those aspirations that are expressed in an individual always increase in a crowd.
For the French, who went back along the old Smolensk road, the final goal of their homeland was too distant, and the nearest goal, the one to which all desires and hopes strove, in enormous proportions intensifying in the crowd, was Smolensk. Not because people knew that there was a lot of provisions and fresh troops in Smolensk, not because they were told this (on the contrary, the highest ranks of the army and Napoleon himself knew that there was little food there), but because this alone could give them the strength to move and endure real hardships. They, both those who knew and those who did not know, equally deceiving themselves as to the promised land, strove for Smolensk.
Having reached the high road, the French ran with amazing energy and unheard-of speed towards their imaginary goal. In addition to this reason of common desire, which united the crowds of French into one whole and gave them some energy, there was another reason that bound them. The reason was their number. Their huge mass itself, as in the physical law of attraction, attracted individual atoms of people. They moved with their hundred-thousand-strong mass as an entire state.
Each of them wanted only one thing - to be captured, to get rid of all horrors and misfortunes. But, on the one hand, the strength of the common desire for the goal of Smolensk carried each one in the same direction; on the other hand, it was impossible for the corps to surrender to the company as captivity, and, despite the fact that the French took every opportunity to get rid of each other and, at the slightest decent pretext, to surrender themselves into captivity, these pretexts did not always happen. Their very number and close, fast movement deprived them of this opportunity and made it not only difficult, but impossible for the Russians to stop this movement, towards which all the energy of the mass of the French was directed. Mechanical tearing of the body could not accelerate the decomposition process beyond a certain limit.
A lump of snow cannot be melted instantly. There is a known time limit before which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On the contrary, the more heat there is, the stronger the remaining snow becomes.
None of the Russian military leaders, except Kutuzov, understood this. When the direction of flight of the French army along the Smolensk road was determined, then what Konovnitsyn foresaw on the night of October 11 began to come true. All the highest ranks of the army wanted to distinguish themselves, cut off, intercept, capture, overthrow the French, and everyone demanded an offensive.
Kutuzov alone used all his strength (these forces are very small for each commander in chief) to counteract the offensive.
He could not tell them what we are saying now: why the battle, and blocking the road, and the loss of his people, and the inhuman finishing off of the unfortunate? Why all this, when one third of this army melted away from Moscow to Vyazma without a battle? But he told them, deducing from his old wisdom something that they could understand - he told them about the golden bridge, and they laughed at him, slandered him, and tore him, and threw him, and swaggered over the killed beast.
At Vyazma, Ermolov, Miloradovich, Platov and others, being close to the French, could not resist the desire to cut off and overturn two French corps. To Kutuzov, notifying him of their intention, they sent in an envelope, instead of a report, a sheet of white paper.
And no matter how hard Kutuzov tried to hold back the troops, our troops attacked, trying to block the road. The infantry regiments are said to have charged with music and drums and killed and lost thousands of men.
But cut off - no one was cut off or knocked over. And the French army, pulled together tighter from danger, continued, gradually melting away, its same disastrous path to Smolensk.

The Battle of Borodino, with the subsequent occupation of Moscow and the flight of the French, without new battles, is one of the most instructive phenomena in history.
All historians agree that the external activities of states and peoples, in their clashes with each other, are expressed by wars; that directly, as a result of greater or lesser military successes, the political power of states and peoples increases or decreases.
No matter how strange the historical descriptions are of how some king or emperor, having quarreled with another emperor or king, gathered an army, fought with the enemy army, won a victory, killed three, five, ten thousand people and, as a result, conquered the state and an entire people of several millions; no matter how incomprehensible it may be why the defeat of one army, one hundredth of all the forces of the people, forced the people to submit, all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the justice of the fact that greater or lesser successes of the army of one people against the army of another people are the reasons or, according to at least significant signs of an increase or decrease in the strength of nations. The army was victorious, and the rights of the victorious people immediately increased to the detriment of the vanquished. The army suffered defeat, and immediately, according to the degree of defeat, the people are deprived of their rights, and when their army is completely defeated, they are completely subjugated.
This has been the case (according to history) from ancient times to the present day. All Napoleon's wars serve as confirmation of this rule. According to the degree of defeat of the Austrian troops, Austria is deprived of its rights, and the rights and strength of France increase. The French victory at Jena and Auerstätt destroys the independent existence of Prussia.
But suddenly in 1812 the French won a victory near Moscow, Moscow was taken, and after that, without new battles, not Russia ceased to exist, but the army of six hundred thousand ceased to exist, then Napoleonic France. It is impossible to stretch the facts to the rules of history, to say that the battlefield in Borodino remained with the Russians, that after Moscow there were battles that destroyed Napoleon’s army.
After the Borodino victory of the French, there was not a single, not only general, but any significant battle, and the French army ceased to exist. What does it mean? If this were an example from the history of China, we could say that this phenomenon is not historical (a loophole for historians when something does not fit their standards); if the matter concerned a short-term conflict in which small numbers of troops were involved, we could accept this phenomenon as an exception; but this event took place before the eyes of our fathers, for whom the issue of life and death of the fatherland was being decided, and this war was the greatest of all known wars...
The period of the 1812 campaign from the Battle of Borodino to the expulsion of the French proved that a won battle is not only not the reason for conquest, but is not even a permanent sign of conquest; proved that the power that decides the fate of peoples lies not in the conquerors, not even in armies and battles, but in something else.
French historians, describing the position of the French army before leaving Moscow, claim that everything in the Great Army was in order, except for the cavalry, artillery and convoys, and there was no fodder to feed horses and cattle. Nothing could help this disaster, because the surrounding men burned their hay and did not give it to the French.
The won battle did not bring the usual results, because the men Karp and Vlas, who after the French came to Moscow with carts to plunder the city and did not personally show heroic feelings at all, and all the countless number of such men did not carry hay to Moscow for the good money that they They offered it, but they burned it.

Let's imagine two people who went out to duel with swords according to all the rules of fencing art: fencing lasted for quite a long time; suddenly one of the opponents, feeling wounded - realizing that this was not a joke, but concerned his life, threw down his sword and, taking the first club he came across, began to swing it. But let us imagine that the enemy, having so wisely used the best and simplest means to achieve his goal, at the same time inspired by the traditions of chivalry, would want to hide the essence of the matter and would insist that he, according to all the rules of art, won with swords. One can imagine what confusion and ambiguity would arise from such a description of the duel that took place.
The fencers who demanded fighting according to the rules of art were the French; his opponent, who threw down his sword and raised his club, were Russians; people who try to explain everything according to the rules of fencing are historians who wrote about this event.
Since the fire of Smolensk, a war began that did not fit any previous legends of war. The burning of cities and villages, retreat after battles, Borodin’s attack and retreat again, abandonment and fire of Moscow, catching marauders, rehiring transports, guerrilla warfare - all these were deviations from the rules.
Napoleon felt this, and from the very time when he stopped in Moscow in the correct pose of a fencer and instead of the enemy’s sword he saw a club raised above him, he never ceased to complain to Kutuzov and Emperor Alexander that the war was waged contrary to all the rules (as if there were some rules for killing people). Despite the complaints of the French about non-compliance with the rules, despite the fact that the Russians, the people of higher position, seemed for some reason ashamed to fight with a club, but wanted, according to all the rules, to take the position en quarte or en tierce [fourth, third], to make a skillful lunge in prime [the first], etc. - the club of the people’s war rose with all its formidable and majestic strength and, without asking anyone’s tastes and rules, with stupid simplicity, but with expediency, without considering anything, it rose, fell and nailed the French until those until the entire invasion was destroyed.
And good for the people who, not like the French in 1813, having saluted according to all the rules of art and turning the sword over with the hilt, gracefully and courteously hand it over to the magnanimous winner, but good for the people who, in a moment of trial, without asking how they acted according to the rules others in similar cases, with simplicity and ease, pick up the first club he comes across and nail it with it until in his soul the feeling of insult and revenge is replaced by contempt and pity.

One of the most tangible and beneficial deviations from the so-called rules of war is the action of scattered people against people huddled together. This kind of action always manifests itself in a war that takes on a popular character. These actions consist in the fact that, instead of becoming a crowd against a crowd, people disperse separately, attack one by one and immediately flee when they are attacked in large forces, and then attack again when the opportunity presents itself. This was done by the Guerillas in Spain; this was done by the mountaineers in the Caucasus; the Russians did this in 1812.
A war of this kind was called partisan and they believed that by calling it that, they explained its meaning. Meanwhile, this kind of war not only does not fit any rules, but is directly opposite to the well-known and recognized infallible tactical rule. This rule says that the attacker must concentrate his troops in order to be stronger than the enemy at the moment of battle.
Guerrilla warfare (always successful, as history shows) is the exact opposite of this rule.
This contradiction occurs because military science accepts the strength of troops as identical with their number. Military science says that the more troops, the more power. Les gros bataillons ont toujours raison. [Right is always on the side of large armies.]
In saying this, military science is similar to mechanics, which, based on considering forces only in relation to their masses, would say that forces are equal or unequal to each other because their masses are equal or unequal.
Force (amount of motion) is the product of mass and speed.
In military affairs, the strength of an army is also the product of the mass by something, some unknown x.
Military science, seeing in history countless examples of the fact that the mass of troops does not coincide with the strength, that small detachments defeat large ones, vaguely recognizes the existence of this unknown factor and tries to find it either in geometric construction, then in weapons, or - the most common - in the genius of the commanders. But substituting all these multiplier values ​​does not produce results consistent with historical facts.
Meanwhile, one only has to abandon the false view that has been established, for the sake of the heroes, about the reality of the orders of the highest authorities during the war in order to find this unknown x.
X this is the spirit of the army, that is, a greater or lesser desire to fight and expose oneself to the dangers of all the people who make up the army, completely regardless of whether people fight under the command of geniuses or non-geniuses, in three or two lines, with clubs or guns firing thirty once a minute. People who have the greatest desire to fight will always put themselves in the most favorable conditions for a fight.
The spirit of the army is a multiplier for mass, giving the product of force. To determine and express the value of the spirit of the army, this unknown factor, is the task of science.
This task is possible only when we stop arbitrarily substituting instead of the value of the entire unknown X those conditions under which force is manifested, such as: orders of the commander, weapons, etc., taking them as the value of the multiplier, and recognize this unknown in all its integrity, that is, as a greater or lesser desire to fight and expose oneself to danger. Then only by expressing known historical facts in equations and by comparing the relative value of this unknown can we hope to determine the unknown itself.
Ten people, battalions or divisions, fighting with fifteen people, battalions or divisions, defeated fifteen, that is, they killed and captured everyone without a trace and themselves lost four; therefore, four were destroyed on one side and fifteen on the other. Therefore four was equal to fifteen, and therefore 4a:=15y. Therefore, w: g/==15:4. This equation does not give the value of the unknown, but it does give the relationship between two unknowns. And by subsuming various historical units (battles, campaigns, periods of war) under such equations, we obtain series of numbers in which laws must exist and can be discovered.

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