Do we owe all this (flashlights) to a Russian?

[Arizona_Dan]

Stumbled across a short, but interesting, article here
on Conrad Hubert (aka Akiba Horowitz), born in Minsk, Russia, came to US at age 35. His company evolved into Eveready. Partnering with inventor of tubular flashlight, patented and gave promotional flashlights to NYPD in 1898 (bet that first tactical flashlight was a beauty). /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The rest, as they say, is history.

 

[FC.]

What kind of Russian name is Akiba? And Horowitz??? I am a first generation American-Russian, and I can tell you that those are not Russian names.

 

[NikolaTesla]

Good thing that patent is expired. MagLite sued a few folks over that focusing bezel... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

NikolaTesla /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

An Arc lamp is the Spark that takes away the Dark--HID Forever!

My Lights LightWar /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/xyxgun.gif

 

[KevinL]

The carbon filament bulbs were inefficient, batteries were weak, and so early "flash lights" resembled somewhat the flash of a camera. The user would have to flash the light on for a few seconds, but then release the contact. Very early lights did not have an on/off switch, just a ring or tab that would push against a button or band of metal.
And we complain about runtime on our 500+ lumen (or 4000+ lumen, in the case of a Chosen Few) lights /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif

Some contemporary lights don't have switches either, just more sophisticated rings and tabs (think of your favorite 'twist on' light and squeeze light). Some contemporary lights have switches that get patents. Ever wondered what the patent number on the Surefire 6P was all about? The switch. Better than the E1e, where the patent is about the *CLIP*. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hahaha.gif (but I like the clip. A lot.)

Maybe the guy's family moved to Russia, where he was born, then moved again to the US.

 

[Peter Atwood]

Akiba is the name of a very famous ancient rabbi so he was certainly a Jewish man.

 

[Kiessling]

I believe it can't sound more jewish than "Horowitz" ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
maybe a russian jew?

bernhard

 

[BC0311]

I'm glad he got out when he did and came to America. What an asset he proved to be.

I don't think he would have gone too far with the idea if he'd stayed where he was.

Russia's loss, the world's gain.

Britt

 

[raggie33]

i think a rusahin guy made he rubiks cube.but he didnt get no money i may be incorect

 

[gadget_lover]

Just about every invention is prompted by other developments, so if Mr Horowitz had not capitalized on it, others would have. The advent of the dry cell battery made many things possible that could not be done with wet acid cells. The development of the tungsten light bulb was really the final piece needed to make the ancestor to the modern flashlight.

Once small bulbs and batteries are available, it's only a matter of time till someone puts them together.

The one we really have to thank is the guy who first figured out that electricity flowing through a wire will make it glow. See http://www.bartleby.com/65/li/lighting.html

[ QUOTE ]

The incandescent electric lamp, in which an electric current passing through a resistance filament (e.g., one of carbon and tungsten) enclosed in a vacuum tube heats the filament until it glows, was developed by the American electrician Moses G. Farmer in 1858–59 but was not practicable. Sir Joseph Swan in England and Thomas Edison in the United States, working independently, developed lamps of this kind; the lamp patented by Edison in 1879 was the first widely marketed incandescent lamp and was the forerunner of the modern Mazda lamp that utilizes a filament of drawn tungsten hermetically sealed in a glass envelope. A gas-filled incandescent lamp was invented by the American chemist Irving Langmuir in 1913.

[/ QUOTE ]


Daniel

 

[Gene]

Well, a Russian named Sergi, (Sp.?), made up for any monies lost by past Russian immigrants with Google!

 

[Phaserburn]

Heck, anything invented by an American is traced to someone else's ancestry, here in the great melting pot. Sometimes we forget that and think of American as an ethnicity instead of a nationality.

Why did I post this? Damned if I know! Must be nap time.