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 (tool), blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer'' ...

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 cau ...

, famous for his invention of the hand pumped Geissler mercury vacuum pump in the mid-1850's and in 1857, the Geissler tube, made of glass and used as a low pressure gas-discharge tube; these two inventions were critical technologies leading to the discovery of the

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

. Geissler descended from a long line of craftsmen in the Thüringer Wald and in

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

. He found work in different German universities, eventually including the University of Bonn. There he was asked by physicist Julius Plücker 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.... 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 .

The Geissler tube was used for entertainment throughout the 1800s and evolved around 1910 into commercial neon lighting. Advances in Plucker and Geissler's discharge tube technology developed into the

Crookes tube A Crookes tube: light and dark. Electrons (cathode rays) travel in straight lines from the cathode ''(left)'', as shown by the shadow cast by the metal Maltese cross on the fluorescence of the righthand glass wall of the tube. The anode is the ...

, with which the

was discovered in 1897, and in 1906 into the amplifying

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic 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. It ...

, 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