Development of lightning rod for lightning protection standard in Europe, especially in Czech lands

Abstract

Abstract This article presents a precise evaluation of the technological and social significance of the first European lightning rod, constructed in the Czech lands by the priest Vaclav Prokop Divis at Přimětice in Moravia on June 15, 1754. Discussions on the protection against lightning are known to have a rich tradition in the Czech lands (in the Habsburg monarchy) as well as in Europe as a whole. Especially the Czech lands, when compared with other countries, ranked among the leaders in terms of installed lightning rods. As for its overall impact, Divis's lightning rod had a significant international overlap; it proved to be of great importance even beyond the borders of the then Habsburg monarchy. The article offers not only a comparison of the efficiency and size of the protective zone of the first lightning rod by means of a computer model and contemporary mathematical and computing methods (method of the rolling sphere and the apex angle method), but it also highlights the unique social milieu in which Divis developed his initial idea. It was an interplay of dogmatic religious scholastics and rational enlightenment in physics and natural sciences that was eventually conducive to the construction of one of the first devices for the protection against direct lightning impact. In their article, the authors also examine the transfer of knowledge on the protection against lightning impact from and to the Czech lands. A key approach to the protection against lightning was correct understanding and assessment of lightning charge, an analysis of the contact tip phenomenon and many issues relating to electrostatic phenomena. Seen in a historical perspective, the Czech lands had established an efficient platform of scientific centres, which linked up to and developed the pioneering work of Prokop Divis several decades later. Viewed in a historical time scale, the Czech lands were represented in the branch of lightning protection primarily by Karel Vaclav Emanuel Zenger, Frantisek Běhounek, Josef Postranecký, Ladislav V. Řihanek, Frantisek Popolanský and many others. Also in terms of standardization, the Czech Republic has been active on a long-term basis, while espousing the European standards with its own CSN EN 62 305 standard. In many other respects, this country has been loyal to traditions; after all, the very first decree on the protection of gunpowder depots against lightning in the Habsburg monarchy came from Empress Maria Theresa and was published shortly after 1778. The lightning protection standard, issued by the Czechoslovak Electrical Engineering Union in the 1950s, had introduced a fundamentally new concept that served for the implementation of most protective systems in this branch until 2006.