František Križík
Encyclopedia
František Křižík was a Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

 inventor, electrical engineer and entrepreneur. The main belt asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 5719 Křižík
5719 Križík
5719 Křižík is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of 1205.8547867 days . The asteroid is named in honor of Czech electrical engineer and inventor František Křižík, who contributed significantly to the electrification of Bohemia....

 was named in his honor.

Křižík was born in a poor family. In spite of this he managed (in 1866) to study engineering. In 1878 he invented a device to protect against collision between train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...

s. His first experiments in Plzeň resulted in the invention of the electric arc lamp
Arc lamp
"Arc lamp" or "arc light" is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, first made from carbon but typically made today of tungsten, which are separated by a gas...

, the so-called Plzen Lamp (1881), for which he successfully defended his patent against Werner Siemens. In 1884 Křižík set up his own company building tramway lines, power stations and electric equipment.

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