HEINRICH LENZ: BIOGRAPHY, EXPERIMENTS, CONTRIBUTIONS, WORKS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz (1804-1865) was a famous Russian physicist, of German origin, who also served as a teacher. His most important contributions were to establish a law that bore his name and that also founded the Joule-Lenz law. He also gave methods for calculating electromagnets and came to discover reversibility in electrical machines.

Lenz's work focused on geophysics. The laws in which he participated determined the thermal effect of electric currents and the theory of magnetic phenomena.

Source:, via Wikimedia Commons.

In addition to his interest in physics, he was also interested in analyzing problems in fields such as mechanics, geophysics, oceanography, and chemical technology.

Biography

Heinrich Lenz was born in February 1804. There are some discrepancies with the date of his birth, since two different days are handled (February 24 and also February 12). He was born in Tartu, which at that time was part of the Livonia governorate.

He entered the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Dorpat. He did so on the advice of his uncle, chemistry professor Ferdinand Giza.

During his years of study, he was characterized by being very ambitious. The teachers highlighted his performance and obviously his talent.

The rector of the Egor Ivanovich University created a physics department and asked Lenz to work at the institution.

In 1821 he also lost his uncle, who was in charge of always supporting him financially. Since he received a scholarship, he did some studies in the theology faculty, although it was not a field in which Lenz showed greater interest.

His family

His father, Christian Heinrich Friedrich Lenz, was secretary general in the magistrate of his city, but died when Lenz was very young. His mother was Louise Elisabeth Wolff, and he was the brother of Maria and Robert Lenz.

He married Anna Lenz, with whom he had seven children; in total there were three men and four women.

One of his sons, Robert Lenz, was also a physicist. He was in charge of geophysics departments and was a member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Science, holding the position of councilor.

Teaching career

Heinrich as a teacher was very brilliant and followed by the students. He gave lectures that were always very well attended; his notes and teachings on physics and geophysics stood out because they were clear and simple.

He wrote several books on these disciplines, which had several editions.

As a teacher he came to work in the oldest and most representative institutions in his country. In 1863 he even became the first elected rector at the University of Saint Petersburg.

Death

Heinrich Lenz died suddenly on January 10, 1865, when he was in Rome, Italy. He went to that country to receive eye treatment after suffering a stroke. He was buried in Rome.

Some experiments

Between the years 1823 and 1826 Lenz participated in expeditions around the world with Otto Kotzebue. In these expeditions he was part of different scientific investigations. During these trips he made physical measurements at a high level; studied the properties of water and atmospheric phenomena.

He was just an 18-year-old student when he joined the expedition. He traveled on the recommendation of one of his teachers, who classified him as one of his most gifted students.

These trips began his studies in the field of oceanography. He managed to demonstrate the relationship between the salinity of the water and solar radiation, and went so far as to affirm that the less saline water was found at the equator because the water does not move as much and there is a greater amount of solar heat.

He created several instruments that allowed a better study of the oceans. The barometer was one of them and was used to take water samples at great depth.

He also developed theories about ocean currents and defined the action areas of geophysics as an area of ​​scientific study.

He showed that the level of the Caspian Sea is higher than that of the Black Sea, in addition to having studied the output of combustible gases in the Baku region.

Discoveries in the field of electromagnetics

He showed great interest in the area of ​​electromagnetics, which led him to discover the laws of Ohm and Ampere. He insisted on verifying the principles that these authors managed to establish and he succeeded in 1832.

He carried out different experiments that allowed him to determine the quantitative laws of induction. With the results he obtained he was able to create a ballistic galvanometer.

His conclusions and discoveries were always recognized by the scientific community.

Lenz's law

Due to some studies by Michael Faraday, Lenz focused on organizing a series of experiments that would allow him to find a logical explanation for the origin of the phenomena that had been discovered.

By 1833 Lenz presented to the scientific community a series of findings that he had achieved in the field of electromagnetics. He explained the fundamental law of electrodynamics, which is now known as Lenz's law.

This law stated that any electromagnetic phenomenon has to do with mechanical energy that is wasted.

With his conclusions, the Russian scientist even came very close to discovering the law of conservation and transformation of energy, which was published eight years later by a German physicist named Myers.

The conclusion that electromagnetic phenomena have to do with wasted mechanical energy was born from observing that an external force caused a magnet to move near a closed conductor. The mechanical energy is then converted into electromagnetic energy from the induction current.

According to Lenz's law, the force that was applied blocked the motion by which it was originally caused. That is, when you are in the presence of a magnet, it was necessary to spend more energy than when the magnet was absent.

Based on his own law, Lenz then proposed the principle of reversibility for electric cars.

Since it was based on proposals from Michael Faraday and completed the studies that had been done, this law is sometimes referred to as the Faraday-Lenz law.

Joule-Lenz

Lenz also did analysis on the amount of heat that was released by currents in the conductor. The findings derived from these studies were of great importance to science.

It was in 1833 that Lenz discovered that there was a connection between the electrical conductivity of metals and the degree of heating. That is why he designed an instrument that made it possible to define the amount of heat that was released.

As a result, the Joule-Lenz law was born. The double name is due to the fact that the English scientist James Joule presented his version of the law almost at the same time as Lenz, although they never worked as a team.

Later Lenz carried out other works that had to do with the attraction of electromagnets and the laws of these. All his contributions were well received by the scientific community.

Contributions to science

Currently the Joule-Lenz law was used to calculate the power of electric heaters and the level of loss that occurs in electric lines.

In addition, Lenz had great contributions when conducting studies on earth science, since it was possible to conclude that the main influence of solar radiation occurs in the atmosphere.

On the other hand, long before the oscilloscope was invented, Lenz created a switch that was the first in the world to show the curves that occur in magnetizing currents as sinusoids.

Published works

Lenz published several articles that were based on his travels around the world. He published his first article in 1832 and dealt with electromagnetism.

It was followed by several articles that dealt, among other things, with the production of cold by voltaic currents, or the laws of conducting powers.

In addition, he wrote in 1864 a physics manual that was a reference for many.

Some curiosities

One of Lenz's students was an important chemist, known as Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. Dmitri was responsible for discovering the pattern that existed for ordering the elements on the periodic table of elements.

Heinrich Lenz was a member of several scientific societies in different European countries, including the Academy of Sciences in Turin and Berlin.

A crater on the moon was named in his honor.

Despite the fact that he lived all his life in the Russian Empire, and that he worked as a teacher there, Lenz never learned Russian. This did not prevent him from becoming the founder of schools such as electrical engineering.

Inductance, which refers to a property that is present in electrical circuits, is measured in henries and its representation occurs with the symbol L, this in honor of the Russian scientist.

However, the word inductance was only used for the first time in the year 1886, thanks to the English physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside. This happened almost 20 years after the death of Heinrich Lenz.

References

1. Francisco, A. (1982). Electric machines.: Conde del Valle de Salazar Foundation.
2. Henshaw, J., & Lewis, S. (2014). An equation for every occasion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
3. Huggenberger, A. (1917). Die Geschichte des Heinrich Lentz. Leipzig: Staackmann.
4. Norton, A. (2008). Dynamic fields and waves. Milton Keynes: Open University.
5. Shamos, M. (2018). Great experiments in physics. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.