Four centuries of Slovenian Vacuum Techniques from Auersperg-Guericke's experiment (1657) to Tesla's Maribor (1878/1879) (on 400th anniversary of birth of the Prince Johann Weikhard Auersperg (1615–1677))

Abstract

Prince Johann Weikhard Auersperg was nearly the only person whom Otto Guericke mentioned in his book about the pioneering vacuum experiments. Guericke reported that Auersperg's doubts forced him to modify and improve his tools. Auersperg just became prince and worked as the prime minister of the Viennese Emperor. He was born in castle Žužemberk of the present days Slovenia and died in his amazing baroque palace of Ljubljana where he collected many vacuum-related curiosities and the best private European library of his era where no vacuum-related item was missing. He collaborated with leading Jesuits vacuum researchers of his times including Gaspar Schott who pioneered the announcement of the Guericke's vacuum equipment. Schott's teacher Athanasius Kircher witnessed the early barometer experiments in Rome, dedicated to Auersperg a part of his book Oedipus, and donated many books to the Auersperg's library of Ljubljana. Later Auersperg became too powerful and the new Emperor forced him to leave Vienna for Ljubljana where Auersperg began to spread his knowledge through his high society circle which included leading local Jesuit literati and Valvasor. Soon after his death the public higher studies were established in Ljubljana and Gorizia to match the already existing ones in Vienna, Prague, Olomouc, Graz, Trnava, Košice, Klagenfurt, and Zagreb of the same Jesuit Province. The Jesuit professors frequently rotated between those colleges and spread their knowledge initially based on Kircher and Schott's ideas of vacuum. A century after Guericke-Auersperg Regensburg experiments a physics laboratory was established in Ljubljana Jesuit College under the leadership of the grandson of Auersperg's customs officer baron Erberg. In next decades, the Ljubljana Jesuits shared their laboratory equipment with similar laboratories along the province to provide the relevant knowledge to their students who lay foundation of the present day Slovenian Vacuum Techniques.