Many people know about Nikola Tesla, about his inventions, including his experiments on the transmission of energy over a distance.
But not many people know at all that back in 1900, the Russian scientist Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov "went to Riga, where he carried out, in the presence of some experts, experiments on blasting at a distance."
And as Mikhail Filippov said, "that this was approached a little in America, but in a completely different and unsuccessful way."
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For a century now, this riddle has been hanging in the air, and no one knows how to approach it.
In January 1894, a new weekly journal "Scientific Review" began to appear in St. Petersburg. The publisher and editor of the magazine was "Doctor of Natural Philosophy" Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov.
He was called the last Russian encyclopedist. Mathematician, chemist, fiction writer, critic, economist, philosopher … And all this rolled into one!
Filippov's journal, although it was scientific, came out with preliminary censorship. Mikhail Mikhailovich showed sympathy for socialist ideas, and therefore was under the secret surveillance of the police. At one time he was even deported to Terijoki (present-day Zelenogorsk) near St. Petersburg. History professor Trachevsky said about his friend Filippov: “Fate was his stepmother. He was an unyielding fighter for truth and truth. He was little understood … He fought all day like a fish on ice, but he did not even think to lay down his weapon."
Promotional video:
Outstanding scientists collaborated in the Scientific Review: DI Mendeleev, VM Bekhterev, PF Lesgaft, NN Beketov. More than once he was published in the journal Filippov and K. E. Tsiolkovsky. It was in the "Scientific Review" that his famous article "Exploration of world spaces by jet devices" was published, which forever secured Tsiolkovsky's priority in theoretical cosmonautics, gave him the right to be called the founder of starfaring. "I am grateful to Filippov," the scientist wrote, "for he alone decided to publish my work."
Tsiolkovsky's article was published in the fifth, May, issue of "Scientific Review" for 1903, and soon an event occurred - a tragic and so mysterious that this secret has not been revealed to this day.
At that time, the editorial office of the magazine was located in Filippov's apartment on the fifth floor of house No. 37 on Zhukovsky Street (owned by the widow of ME Saltykov-Shchedrin). In the same apartment there was also a chemical laboratory in which Mikhail Mikhailovich worked, staying up long after midnight, or even until the morning.
“In the last years of his life, MM Filippov,” wrote his son, “was intensively engaged in physical, technical and pyrotechnic research. He began to develop a scientific problem, the solution of which, from his point of view, could bring invaluable benefit to mankind."
What kind of scientific problem it was and what task the scientist set for himself became clear from his letter sent to the editorial office of the newspaper Sankt-Petersburgskie vedomosti on June 11 (old style), 1903. This document is so interesting and important that we will quote it in full.
“In my early youth,” wrote Filippov, “I read from Buckle that the invention of gunpowder made wars less bloody. Since then, I have been haunted by the idea of the possibility of such an invention that would make wars almost impossible. Surprising as it may seem, but the other day I made a discovery, the practical development of which will actually abolish the war.
We are talking about a method I have invented for electrical transmission over a distance of an explosion wave, and, judging by the method used, this transmission is possible over a distance of thousands of kilometers, so that, having made an explosion in St. Petersburg, it will be possible to transmit its effect to Constantinople.
The method is amazingly simple and cheap. But with such a conduct of war at the distances I have indicated, the war actually becomes insanity and must be abolished. I will publish the details in the fall in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. The experiments are slowed down by the extraordinary danger of the substances used, some very explosive, like nitrogen trichloride, some extremely poisonous."
As already mentioned, the letter was sent to the editorial office of the newspaper on June 11, and the next day Filippov was found dead in his home laboratory.
The scientist's widow, Lyubov Ivanovna Filippova, said: on the eve of his death, Mikhail Mikhailovich warned his relatives that he would work for a long time, and asked to wake him up no earlier than 12 noon. The family did not hear any noise, let alone an explosion, that fateful night in the laboratory. Exactly at 12 we went to wake up. The door to the laboratory was locked. They knocked and, not hearing an answer, broke down the door.
Filippov was lying on the floor without his coat, face down, in a pool of blood. The window overlooking Zhukovsky Street was opened. On the laboratory table - apparatus, chemical glassware, reagents. There was a short note on the desk. “Experiments on the transmission of an explosion to a distance,” Mikhail Mikhailovich fluently wrote in it. - Experience 12th. For this experiment it is necessary to obtain anhydrous hydrocyanic acid. Therefore, the greatest care is required, as in the experiment with the explosion of carbon monoxide. Experiment 13, explosion of carbon monoxide together with oxygen. I need to buy the elements of the Leclanche and the Rumkorff spiral. The experience is to be repeated here in a large room upon the departure of the family …”.
According to the scientist's son, preliminary studies were carried out in Terijoki, in exile (in 1901-1902), but Mikhail Mikhailovich was especially active in them in 1903. More than a dozen successful experiments have made it possible to believe that the goal is probably achievable. There were two final, decisive experiments. But Filippov's sudden death stopped everything.
The police conducted an investigation, a search was made in Filippov's laboratory. But all this was done somehow in a hurry and very unprofessional. Even medical experts differed greatly in their conclusions about the causes of Filippov's death. A freelance doctor, Polyansky, invited by the deceased's family, wrote in Latin in the medical certificate: "Mors ex causa ignota" ("Death from an unknown cause").
Petersburg newspapers vividly discussed the tragedy on Zhukovsky Street. Various versions have been expressed: heart failure, cerebral hemorrhage, poisoning with poisonous substances during experiments, and finally, suicide. But no one gave a firm answer.
The funeral of Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov took place on the morning of June 25. Only his relatives were present, members of the editorial board of the magazine and a few representatives of the literary world. The body of the scientist was buried at the Literatorskie Mostki Volkov Cemetery - the burial place of Russian writers, not far from the graves of Belinsky and Dobrolyubov.
Meanwhile, rumors about the mysterious invention did not stop.
The Petersburg newspaper quoted the words of “a person who knew the deceased intimately” (his last name was not named): “Work, especially in the last week, one might say, was in full swing,” this person close to him said about Filippov. "He spent hours in his office, and, apparently, the experiments were quite successful."
But a particularly interesting interview was given to "Petersburg Vedomosti" by the already mentioned professor Trachevsky. Three days before the tragic death of the scientist, they saw each other and talked. “To me, as a historian,” said Trachevsky, “MM could tell about his idea only in the most general outline. When I reminded him of the difference between theory and practice, he firmly said: "It has been verified, there have been experiments, and I will do it." MM told me the essence of the secret approximately, as in a letter to the editor. And more than once he said, banging his hand on the table: “It's so simple, moreover, it's cheap! It's amazing how they haven't figured it out yet. " I remember that MM added that they approached this a little in America, but in a completely different and unsuccessful way."
The debate around Filippov's mysterious discovery gradually died down. Ten years passed, and in 1913, in connection with the tenth anniversary of the death of the scientist, the newspapers again returned to this topic. At the same time, new important details were recalled.
For example, the Moscow newspaper Russkoe Slovo wrote that Filippov traveled to Riga in 1900, where he carried out, in the presence of some experts, experiments on blasting at a distance. Returning to St. Petersburg, "he said that he was extremely pleased with the results of the experiments." The same newspaper tried to find Filippov's drugs and devices, seized by the Petersburg security department during a search. Alas, everything disappeared without a trace.
There was especially a lot of talk about the fate of Filippov's scientific manuscript, which, according to one of the newspapers, contained "mathematical calculations and the results of experiments on blasting at a distance."
As the scientist's widow told reporters, on the day after his death, this manuscript was taken by the then well-known publicist Finn-Enotaevsky, an employee of the Scientific Review. He promised to remove a copy from the manuscript, and return the original in a few days.
However, days and months passed, and Finn-Enotaevsky did not even think about returning the important manuscript. When Filippov's widow firmly demanded return, he declared that he no longer had the manuscript, that he burned it for fear of a search. Of course, newspaper reporters rushed to the publicist for an interview. His answers sounded contradictory and uncertain. It was clearly unclean …
Finn-Enotaevsky lived up to Stalin's times and was repressed in 1931. And what if among his papers in some secret archive there is still a manuscript taken by him in the laboratory on Zhukovsky Street?
Filippov was never known for his bragging rights. "A fighter for truth," he, of course, wrote the pure truth.
But already in 1903, immediately after the tragedy, articles appeared in the newspapers that questioned the scientist's statement. The journalist of Novoye Vremya, Petersen, tried especially hard, signing his "scientific feuilletons" with the pseudonym "A-t". In the note "A Gloomy Riddle" he called on Mendeleev to speak and, so to speak, to dot the "i".
And Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev appeared in the newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti", however, not in support of a pseudoscientific note, but in defense of the late scientist-inventor.
“A philosophically educated person,” the great chemist wrote reproachfully, “will never allow himself to be subjected to such harsh condemnation of discoveries that have not yet been made, especially since the ideas of Filippov (by the way, as far as I know, who studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg) may well withstand scientific criticism..
Well, what is the modern view of the mysterious discovery of Filippov? A. Polishchuk, the author of many essays on the history of chemistry, in his interesting detective story "The Case of the Death of Mikhail Filippov" suggested that the St. Petersburg scientist had thought (at the beginning of the 20th century!) To a beam weapon, a laser, had thought of it intuitively, not knowing many discoveries, which were made by physicists only decades later.
And, moreover, up to the most powerful type of laser, chemically pumped. It is known that in such a laser the substance is "pumped" to the required excitation concentration by means of an explosion. Filippov had a "very explosive" substance at his disposal (he himself pointed to it in his suicide letter). This is nitrogen chloride - a terrible liquid, ready to smash everything around at any moment.
Laser specialists, to whom Polishchuk consulted, did not deny an attempt to create a laser 100 years ago. That's just to make ultra-precise mirrors with a strictly calculated curvature in those days would have been a problem. However, there are lasers that don't need mirrors. They use the effect of superluminescence, which allows the laser to "shoot" from one pass of the beam. The design is simple - a long pipe. However, there are doubts here too, and considerable …
Perhaps, over time, other hypotheses will appear, more plausible. Perhaps new documents will be found, and then the riddle will finally be solved.
Material by G. Chernenko
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Filippov was not a frivolous science fiction writer. In addition, he was a staunch Marxist and, despite the danger he exposed himself, spoke about it openly.
Thus, on November 19, 1900, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “I argued about Marxism with Filippov; he spoke very convincingly."
There is also reason to believe that it was Filippov who owns the famous formula: "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country," taken up by the first leader of the Soviet state.
The missing manuscript was titled "A Revolution Through Science, or an End to Wars." Moreover, it was not a purely theoretical composition. Filippov wrote to friends that he had made an amazing discovery.
“I can reproduce the full force of an explosion with a beam of short waves. The blast wave is fully transmitted along the carrier electromagnetic wave, and thus the dynamite charge, detonated in Moscow, can transmit its effect to Constantinople. Experiments I have done show that this phenomenon can be caused at a distance of several thousand kilometers. The use of such weapons in the revolution will lead to the fact that the peoples will revolt, and wars will become completely impossible,”he wrote in one of his letters.
Filippov has a son, Boris (1903-1991), a Soviet theatrical figure, director of the Central House of Art Workers and the Central House of Writers.
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The sad fate of this bright man was summed up by a note in the Small Soviet Encyclopedia:
“Filippov Mikhail Mikhailovich (1858-1903) - publicist and scientist, one of the first Russian Marxists. Founder and editor of the journal Scientific Review. Filippov discovered the possibility of transmitting an explosion wave over a long distance. He died from gas poisoning during the production of experiments. (This is one of the contradictory versions of the tsarist security department about the reasons for the death of the scientist, for more details see the link below. Approx. Ed. Topic) Fearing the use of Filippov's discovery for revolutionary purposes, the secret police took away all his devices after his death, notes that disappeared without a trace."
May be so. In any case, this assumption is quite logical. But what was the discovery itself?
Can modern specialists, after so many years, decipher and at least slightly concretize this mysterious idea of the transmission of an explosion wave over long distances by means of an electric current? Is it possible?
What did Filippov mean when he briefly described his discovery in his last letter on June 11, 1903? Does something like this exist now? Or will the discovery made at the beginning of the century remain a "blank spot" in science?
P. KOROP
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"The method of electrical transmission of the explosion wave" - these words of Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov still remain mysterious.
Or maybe … our guesses have nothing to do with Filippov's idea? Perhaps its principle was unexpectedly new? Maybe the scientist was on the verge of a great discovery, brilliant in its simplicity, really held in his hands the threads leading to the discovery of a means capable of making wars, if not impossible, then extremely difficult …
A. IVOLGIN, engineer