Ivan Pavlovych Puluj (, ; ; 2 February 1845 – 31 January 1918) was a Ukrainian physicist and inventor known for his early research into X-rays. His contributions were largely neglected until the end of the 20th century.

Biography

Puluj was born on 2 February 1845 in Hrymailiv, which was then part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire. He was the son of Pavlo Puluj and Xenia née Burshtynska (). Puluj also worked as a state adviser on electrical engineering for Bohemian and Moravian local governments.

In addition, he completed a translation of the Bible into the Ukrainian language.

Personal life

4 October 1884, he married Kateřina née Stožicky (1863–1945) in Vienna. They had six children: Natalia (wife of the composer Vasyl Barvinsky), Olga, Maria Xenia Margareta (died in Vienna in 1974), Alexander Hans (1901–1984), Pavlo (died in 1986) and Georg (1906–1987).

Scientific contribution

thumb|Cathode ray tube #12, Ivan Puluj design, ca 1896

thumb|Puluj's apparatus for determining the mechanical equivalent of heatPuluj did heavy research into cathode rays, publishing several papers about those rays between 1880 and 1882. In 1881 as a result of experiments into what he called cold light Prof. Puluj developed the Puluj lamp. Puluj experimented with his new device and published his results in a scientific paper, Luminous Electrical Matter and the Fourth State of Matter in the Notes of the Austrian Imperial Academy of Sciences (1880–1883), but expressed his ideas in an obscure manner using obsolete terminology. Puluj did gain some recognition when the work was translated and published as a book by the Royal Society in the UK.

Puluj's findings were essentially X-rays, which he reported 6 weeks after Röntgen reported his.

Puluj made many other discoveries as well. He is particularly noted for inventing a device for determining the mechanical equivalent of heat that was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1878. Puluj also participated in opening of several power plants in Austria-Hungary.

Quotes about Puluj

  • "World history has never been just to certain individuals or certain nations. Small nations and their achievements are often neglected, while the accomplishments of large nations are at times exaggerated."
  • Slavko Bokshan, a Serbian scientist who worked in the same department as Puluj and Röntgen

Honours

  • Ukraine's Ternopil Ivan Pul'uj National Technical University is named after him.
  • A stamp published on the occasion of Puluj's 150th Birth Anniversary in 1995.

The World Association of Roentgenologists was created in 2018 in Lviv city in honor of Ivan Puluj (citation needed).

References

Literature

  • R. Gajda, R. Plazko: Johann Puluj: Rätsel des universalen Talents. EuroWelt-Verlag, Lwiw 2001,
  • S. Nahorniak, M. Medyukh: Physical-technical ideas of Ivan Pul'uj. Dschura, Ternopil 1999,
  • Ternopil Ivan Puluj National Technical University
  • The Discovery or X-Rays
  • Puluj-Roehrer lamp
  • The Cathode Ray Tube site