Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Geißler (26 May 1814 in Igelshieb – 24 January 1879) was a skilled

glassblower Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer''. A '' lampworke ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

, famous for his invention of the

Geissler tube A Geissler tube is an early gas discharge tube used to demonstrate the principles of electrical glow discharge, similar to modern neon lighting. The tube was invented by the German physicist and glassblower Heinrich Geissler in 1857. It consist ...

, made of glass and used as a low pressure gas-discharge tube. Geissler descended from a long line of craftsmen in the

Thüringer Wald The Thuringian Forest (''Thüringer Wald'' in German), is a mountain range in the southern parts of the German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorge on its north-west side i ...

and in

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

. He found work in different German universities, eventually including the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

. There he was asked by physicist

Julius Plücker Julius Plücker (16 June 1801 – 22 May 1868) was a German mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions to the field of analytical geometry and was a pioneer in the investigations of cathode rays that led eventually to the disc ...

to design an apparatus for evacuating a glass tube.

Plücker owed his forthcoming success in the electric discharge experiments in large measure to his instrument maker, the skilled glassblower and mechanic Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Geissler. He learned the art of glassblowing in the duchy of
Saxe-Meiningen Saxe-Meiningen (; german: Sachsen-Meiningen ) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin dynasty, located in the southwest of the present-day German state of Thuringia. Established in 1681, by partition of the Ernestin ...
.... He finally settled down as an instrument-maker in a workshop of his own at the University of Bonn in 1852.Per F. Dahl, ''Flash of the cathode rays: a history of J.J. Thomson's electron''. CRC Press, 1997, pp.49–52 .

Geissler made a hand-crank mercury pump, and glass tubes that could contain a superior vacuum. The Geissler tube was used for entertainment throughout the 1800s and evolved around 1910 into commercial

neon lighting Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode ...

. Advances in Plucker and Geissler's discharge tube technology developed into the

Crookes tube A Crookes tube (also Crookes–Hittorf tube) is an early experimental electrical discharge tube, with partial vacuum, invented by English physicist William Crookes and others around 1869-1875, in which cathode rays, streams of electrons, were dis ...

, with which the

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

was discovered in 1897, and in 1906 into the amplifying

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. The type kn ...

, the basis of electronics and long distance communication technologies like radio and television. Geissler was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1868.

References and articles

;Publications *Miller, H. A. (1945). ''Luminous tube lighting, dealing with the principles of the luminous tube, with a summary of the materials and equipment involved, and technical data concerning discharge-tube light sources''. London: G. Newnes. *Kassabian, Mihran Kriko
''Roentgen rays and electro-therapeutics: with chapters on radium and phototherapy''
Publisher: J.B. Lippincott Company Philadelphia & London, 1910 - Lippincott's New Medical Series. Edited by Francis R. Packard, M.D * Davis, H. B. O. (1981). ''Electrical and electronic technologies: a chronology of events and inventors to 1900''. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press. * Phillips, C. E. S. (Charles Edmund Stanley)
''Bibliography of X-ray literature and research, 1896–1897: being a ready reference index to the literature on the subject of roentgen or X-rays''
Publisher: The Electrician Print. and Pub. Co., London 1897 *
Heinrich Geissler 1838, page 16, Historical Retrospect
in: Charles E. S. Philips

External links

- The Cathode Ray Tube site
Spark Museum, ''Crookes and Geissler Tubes''

in: Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008

Electrical tubes in the Museum of Science and Industry, London

1''857 – Julius Plücker, Heinrich Geißler und der Beginn systematischer Gasentladungsforschung in Deutschland''
in: NTM International Journal of History & Ethics of Natural Sciences, Technology & Medicine, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp 26-45 {{DEFAULTSORT:Geissler, Heinrich 1814 births 1879 deaths People from Neuhaus am Rennweg Academic staff of the University of Bonn German scientific instrument makers 19th-century German inventors Scientists from Thuringia