Georg von Arco
Encyclopedia
Georg Wilhelm Alexander Hans Graf von Arco (August 30, 1869 – May 5, 1940) was a German
physicist
, radio
pioneer, and one of the joint founders of the "Society for Wireless Telegraphy" which became the Telefunken
company. He was an engineer
and the technical director
of Telefunken. He was crucial in the development of wireless technology in Europe.
Arco served for a time as an assistant to Adolf Slaby
, who was close to William II, German Emperor
. Until 1930, Arco was one of the two managing directors of the company. He participated in the development of high performance tube
transmitters. Together with his teacher, Slaby, he was considerably involved in the study and development of high-frequency engineering in Germany. He was a Monist and a pacifist. Between 1921-22, he was a chairman of the German Monist Federation.
, Upper Silesia
, Prussia
(today part of Poland
). As a child he was interested in machine
s of all kinds, but after his Abitur
in the Breslauer Maria Magdalenen High School (1889) he did not study engineering sciences, but instead attended mathematical and physical lectures at the University of Berlin. Afterwards he took up a military career. For his father it was natural that the members of his family became either farmers or officers. After three years with the military, however, his life changed, in order to study mechanical engineering and electro-technology in the TH Charlottenburg from 1893. There he became acquainted with Professor Adolf Slaby
, who had participated in Guglielmo Marconi
's transmission experiments on the coast of the English Channel
.
Building on these attempts, Arco and Slaby in the summer of 1897 used the bell tower of the Church of the Redeemer, Sacrow
, as an antenna
, to verify and understand Marconi's experiments. Here the first German antenna system for wireless telegraphy was established. On 27 August a signal transmission to the imperial naval base, Kongsnaes, 1.6 kilometers away in Potsdam
was successful.
In 1928 a plaque, created by Hermann Hosaeus, was fixed over the door of the campanile to commemorate to this attempt. In the centre of the plaque, which is made from green dolomite
, is Atlas
with the globe, surrounded by lightning and the text: "At this place in 1897 Professor Adolf Slaby and Count von Arco erected the first German antenna system for wireless communication".
On 7 October 1897, the first radio link from Berlin Schöneberg to Rangsdorf
was successful, and the following summer Jüterbog
, approximately 60 kilometres away, could be reached.
. At first Arco was responsible as a laboratory engineer for testing various cable
types, but also, through continued contact with Slaby, introduced and developed wireless telegraphy at AEG.
, founding a common enterprise, the Society for Wireless Telegraphy Ltd. The company's telegraph address, Telefunken, eventually became the company name. Arco greatly increased the power and range of early transmitters. In this regard he surpassed the Löschfunkensender of Max Wien
, which had already exhibited a substantially better efficiency than the Knallfunkensender of Ferdinand Braun, and in addition could send on a narrow frequency band.
and the fleet. A decade later, in 1918, the transmitting power had increased tenfold. The station used a new transmitter technology introduced in 1912, a high frequency alternator (similar to an Alexanderson alternator
, with magnetic frequency multiplier converter. This permitted, the production of undamped continuous wave
s with high power. This development was due to the substantial involvement of Arco. It stimulated electron tube
s experiments.
, which was unusual for someone in his position.
He was an advisory member of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, a German branch of the Rockefeller Foundation
.
area of Tempelhof
. In Charlottenburg
, Havelstrasse was renamed Arcostrasse in 1950, in memory of this pioneer of radio engineering. Also in Nauen
, where Telefunken has had a working transmission station since the beginning of the 20th century, there is another road named after him.
The town of Arco, Idaho
, was named after him in 1903.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
pioneer, and one of the joint founders of the "Society for Wireless Telegraphy" which became the Telefunken
Telefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...
company. He was an engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
and the technical director
Technical director
The Technical Director or Technical Manager is usually a senior technical person within a software company, film studio, theatrical company or television studio...
of Telefunken. He was crucial in the development of wireless technology in Europe.
Arco served for a time as an assistant to Adolf Slaby
Adolf Slaby
Adolf Karl Heinrich Slaby was a German wireless pioneer and the first Professor of electro-technology at the Technical University of Berlin .-Education:Slaby was born in Berlin, the son of a bookbinder...
, who was close to William II, German Emperor
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
. Until 1930, Arco was one of the two managing directors of the company. He participated in the development of high performance tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
transmitters. Together with his teacher, Slaby, he was considerably involved in the study and development of high-frequency engineering in Germany. He was a Monist and a pacifist. Between 1921-22, he was a chairman of the German Monist Federation.
Early years
Arco was born on the estate of his father, Count Alexander Karl von Arco, in GroßgorschützGorzyce, Silesian Voivodeship
Gorzyce is a village and the seat of Gmina Gorzyce in Wodzisław County, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It has a population of 2,487. It lies near the border with the Czech Republic.-History:...
, Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...
, Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
(today part of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
). As a child he was interested in machine
Machine
A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
s of all kinds, but after his Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...
in the Breslauer Maria Magdalenen High School (1889) he did not study engineering sciences, but instead attended mathematical and physical lectures at the University of Berlin. Afterwards he took up a military career. For his father it was natural that the members of his family became either farmers or officers. After three years with the military, however, his life changed, in order to study mechanical engineering and electro-technology in the TH Charlottenburg from 1893. There he became acquainted with Professor Adolf Slaby
Adolf Slaby
Adolf Karl Heinrich Slaby was a German wireless pioneer and the first Professor of electro-technology at the Technical University of Berlin .-Education:Slaby was born in Berlin, the son of a bookbinder...
, who had participated in Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
's transmission experiments on the coast of the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
.
Building on these attempts, Arco and Slaby in the summer of 1897 used the bell tower of the Church of the Redeemer, Sacrow
Church of the Redeemer, Sacrow
The Protestant Church of the Redeemer is located in the south of the village of Sacrow, which since 1939 is incorporated to Potsdam, the capital of the German Bundesland of Brandenburg. It is famous for its Italian Romanesque Revival architecture with a separate campanile and for its...
, as an antenna
Antenna (radio)
An antenna is an electrical device which converts electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver...
, to verify and understand Marconi's experiments. Here the first German antenna system for wireless telegraphy was established. On 27 August a signal transmission to the imperial naval base, Kongsnaes, 1.6 kilometers away in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
was successful.
In 1928 a plaque, created by Hermann Hosaeus, was fixed over the door of the campanile to commemorate to this attempt. In the centre of the plaque, which is made from green dolomite
Dolomite
Dolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....
, is Atlas
Atlas (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Atlas was the primordial Titan who supported the heavens. Although associated with various places, he became commonly identified with the Atlas Mountains in north-west Africa...
with the globe, surrounded by lightning and the text: "At this place in 1897 Professor Adolf Slaby and Count von Arco erected the first German antenna system for wireless communication".
On 7 October 1897, the first radio link from Berlin Schöneberg to Rangsdorf
Rangsdorf
Rangsdorf is a municipality in the district of Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg in Germany. It has an airfield, from where on 20 July 1944 Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg flew in his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler at Wolfsschanze....
was successful, and the following summer Jüterbog
Jüterbog
Jüterbog is a historic town in north-eastern Germany, located in the Teltow-Fläming district of Brandenburg. It is located on the Nuthe river at the northern slope of the Fläming hill range, about southwest of Berlin.-History:...
, approximately 60 kilometres away, could be reached.
AEG
In 1898, at the end of his study, Arco went to work as an engineer at the Kabelwerk Oberspree plant of AEGAEG
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....
. At first Arco was responsible as a laboratory engineer for testing various cable
Cable
A cable is two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly. In mechanics cables, otherwise known as wire ropes, are used for lifting, hauling and towing or conveying force through tension. In electrical engineering cables are used to carry...
types, but also, through continued contact with Slaby, introduced and developed wireless telegraphy at AEG.
Telefunken
Patent disputes between Siemens and AEG resulted in both companies, at the behest of William II, German EmperorWilliam II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
, founding a common enterprise, the Society for Wireless Telegraphy Ltd. The company's telegraph address, Telefunken, eventually became the company name. Arco greatly increased the power and range of early transmitters. In this regard he surpassed the Löschfunkensender of Max Wien
Max Wien
Max Wien was a German physicist and the director of the Institute of Physics at the University of Jena. He was born in Königsberg, Prussia.Wien studied under Helmholtz and Kundt. He invented the "Löschfunkensender" during the years 1906 to 1909 and the Wien bridge in 1891...
, which had already exhibited a substantially better efficiency than the Knallfunkensender of Ferdinand Braun, and in addition could send on a narrow frequency band.
Nauen radio station
Arco's greatest service lay in the development of the large radio station, Nauen, thereby helping Telefunken to become a firm of worldwide reputation. In 1909 he equipped it with a Löschfunksender, with which Nauen changed from being a research station into a station with regular radio traffic. Now contact could be made with the African coloniesGerman colonial empire
The German colonial empire was an overseas domain formed in the late 19th century as part of the German Empire. Short-lived colonial efforts by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Imperial Germany's colonial efforts began in 1884...
and the fleet. A decade later, in 1918, the transmitting power had increased tenfold. The station used a new transmitter technology introduced in 1912, a high frequency alternator (similar to an Alexanderson alternator
Alexanderson alternator
An Alexanderson alternator is a rotating machine invented by Ernst Alexanderson in 1904 for the generation of high frequency alternating current up to 100 kHz, for use as a radio transmitter...
, with magnetic frequency multiplier converter. This permitted, the production of undamped continuous wave
Continuous wave
A continuous wave or continuous waveform is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency; and in mathematical analysis, of infinite duration. Continuous wave is also the name given to an early method of radio transmission, in which a carrier wave is switched on and off...
s with high power. This development was due to the substantial involvement of Arco. It stimulated electron tube
Electron tube
Electron tube can be used to describe either of two things:* Vacuum tube* Gas-filled tube...
s experiments.
Philosophical and ideological activities
While Slaby continued working in the university, Arco pursued philosophical activities. He associated himself with the Monist movement and the Berlin Circle for Empirical Philosophy, as well as the pacifist movement during the First World War as founding member and chairman of the Bund Neues Vaterlands. He belonged to the German Monist League, whose chairman he was from 1921 to 1922. In 1923 he was joint founder of the Society of Friends of New Russia, because of which he celebrated his 60th birthday in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, which was unusual for someone in his position.
He was an advisory member of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, a German branch of the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
.
Death and afterwards
After his death, Arco was accorded the honour of a civic funeral from Berlin. The tended grave is in the enormous cemetery, Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf. The senate had a memorial plaque erected at Albrechtstrasse 49/50 in the MariendorfMariendorf
Mariendorf is a locality in the southern Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough of Berlin.- Geography :Mariendorf is situated between the localities of Tempelhof in the north and Marienfelde and Lichtenrade in the south...
area of Tempelhof
Tempelhof
Tempelhof is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. It is now deserted and shows as a blank spot on maps of Berlin. Attempts are being made to save the still-existing...
. In Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...
, Havelstrasse was renamed Arcostrasse in 1950, in memory of this pioneer of radio engineering. Also in Nauen
Nauen
Nauen is a town in the Havelland district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated 38 km west of Berlin and 26 km northwest of Potsdam.-History:...
, where Telefunken has had a working transmission station since the beginning of the 20th century, there is another road named after him.
The town of Arco, Idaho
Arco, Idaho
Arco is a city in Butte County, Idaho, United States. The population was 995 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Butte County.Craters of the Moon National Monument is located along U.S. Route 20, southwest of the city. The Idaho National Laboratory is located east of Arco...
, was named after him in 1903.
External reading
- Margot Fuchs: Georg von Arco (1869–1940) - Ingenieur, Pazifist, Technischer Direktor von Telefunken. Diepholz/Berlin: GNT Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-928186-70-4.
External articles
- GrafvonArco-schule.de, Graf von Arco
- Rolaa.de
- MaerkischeAllgemeine.de, Arco, Georg Graf von (Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf), Märkische AllgemeineMärkische AllgemeineThe Märkische Allgemeine is a regional, daily newspaper published by the Märkische Verlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH for the area in and around the state capital of Brandenburg, Potsdam in Germany....
, newspaper for BundeslandStates of GermanyGermany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
BrandenburgBrandenburgBrandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
. - Google.com, Literature by and about George von Arco in the catalog of the German National LibraryGerman National LibraryThe German National Library is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany...
.