[SKRIVA] 19th Century Tech Wizard: Gustaf de Laval

  • From: Ahrvid Engholm <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "fictionmags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <fictionmags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 10:57:38 +0200

Yesterday I went to the Nobel Museum in Stockholm for the release of a book 
about a 19th century Swedish inventor and industrialist: Gustaf de Laval - ett 
rastlöst snille by Anders Johnson (GdL - A Restless Genius, 
http://www.atlantisbok.se/layout/detail.php?id=7823, publ Atlantis in 
cooperation with Centre for History of Business).  de Laval (1845-1913) was one 
of the great inventors that emerged in Sweden in the later half of the 19th 
Century, together with eg Alfred Nobel (dynamite), LM Ericsson (telephones), GE 
Pasch (the safety match), J Wenström (three phase electricity), JP Johansson 
(the monkey wrench), J Ericsson (propeller, gun turret - though he was active 
in the US), and others.  For the book Johnson has been able to study eg the 30 
shelf-metres of de Laval's left over papers, held by the Stockholm Technical 
Museum. Letters, articles and maybe most important de Laval's many sketch books 
where his dynamic mind scribble and doodle his many ideas.

  de Laval's biggest inventions was in steam power and farming. He invented the 
first successful milk-cream separator, which was the basis for his company Alfa 
Laval, which still exists. But his biggest contribution was probably his three 
inventions for practical steam turbine power. He invented a free-floating axis 
that made high rpm:s possible, the V-gear that could extract the high-rpm power 
and most importantly the de Laval nozzle that gave steam supersonic speed. This 
nozzle is still the basis for today's rocket nozzles.  He became a civil 
engineer at the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm but also studied at 
Uppsala University and earned a PhD. His family was 17th Century hugenot 
imigrants and nobility. de Laval was also for a period elected to the upper 
chamber of the Swedish parliament, where he as a conservative and nationalist 
was a fierce opponent to free trade. According to the book's author it seems 
that de Laval's vision and main driving force was to improve Swedish economy. 
An example:  At one point de Laval obtained the waterfall rights to a main 
river, for building a hydro power station. The government objected and sued, 
saying it was ancient "royal rights" (ie the government's). The government won 
after a ruling by the Supreme Court, but de Laval's comment was only (approx) 
"Well, it was good that the rights went to Sweden", as opposed to some foreign 
investor).

  de Laval's ambitions perhaps made him spread his energies to too many 
projects. He founded 37 companies of which most went bust. Alfa Laval still 
exists, in health, as well as the farming eqiupment company De Laval; parts of 
Volvo and Siemens are from companies he founded (and they bought, later). 
Despite what this Wikipedia article says he wasn't a too successful businessman 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_de_Laval). He built hydroplane boats that 
sunk, but dreamt that they'd be able to cross the Atlantic in a couple of days. 
He founded an inventor centre, a mini-version of Edison's Menlo Park perhaps, 
employing up to 70 engineers.  But when he died of cancer in 1913 he had debts 
of around 1 million dollars (a huge amount then!). Despite his many inventions 
he was several times close to bankruptcy. Still, his memory and his inventions 
live on. Today all electricity from coal, oil and nuclear power plants rely on 
de Laval's contributions. And I guess that gas turbines, as in modern jets, 
should give a hat tip or two to de Laval's insights into turbine power. Not to 
forget that his nozzle drives the exploration of space...

After the book presentation, by the author Anders Johnson (which was very 
good!), there was mingling with drinks and snacks.  A big group of de Laval's 
today living relatives were present, including Gustaf de Laval's granddaughter! 
I talked to some of them and they are of course proud of their famous ancestor, 
despite that he wasn't much of a businessman and that the descendants didn't 
become rich. One of them now studies to become an engineer.  The Nobel Museum 
will by the way in 2018 move to a new, much bigger location (it is now in the 
old Stock Exchange house, with too little space). A Nobel Centre of 20 000 
square metres will be built, close to the National Museum. Plans include a big 
auditorium, to move the prize ceremonies there (from the Concert Hall which is 
used today). The big Nobel banquet will however remain in the beautiful City 
Hall.  At one point de Laval took a young inventor named Gustaf Dalén under his 
wings. The year before de Laval's death Dalén won the Nobel Prize in Physics 
for his several inventions in lighthouse technology.

--Ahrvid

Ps. BTW, it was just a few days ago that the IgNobel Prizes were presented...  
CC: to the SKRIVA list and the book's author too.
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