Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is an outstanding scientist, inventor and engineer who created the fundamentals for calculating jet propulsion and developed the design of the first space rocket for exploring the boundless spaces of the world. Breadth and amazing richness creative imagination He combined them with strict mathematical calculations.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born on September 17, 1857 in the village of Izhevsk, Ryazan province, in the family of a forester. About his parents, K. S. Tsiolkovsky wrote: “My father’s character was close to choleric. He was always cold and reserved. Among his friends, my father was known as an intelligent man and speaker... He had a passion for invention and construction. I wasn’t there yet in the world, when he invented and built a thresher.

Alas, it was unsuccessful. The mother was of a completely different character - a sanguine nature, hot-tempered, laughing, mocking and gifted. Character and willpower prevailed in the father, and talent prevailed in the mother.”

K. E. Tsiolkovsky united the best human qualities of his parents. He inherited his father's strong, unyielding will and his mother's talent.

The first years of K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s childhood were happy. In the summer he ran a lot, played, built huts in the forest with his friends, and loved to climb fences, roofs and trees. He often flew a kite and sent a box with a cockroach up a thread. In winter I enjoyed sledding. At the age of nine, at the beginning of winter, K. E. Tsiolkovsky fell ill with scarlet fever. The illness was severe, and due to complications in the ears, the boy almost completely lost his hearing. Deafness did not allow me to continue studying at school. “Deafness makes my biography of little interest,” K. E. Tsiolkovsky later wrote, “because it deprives me of communication with people, observation and borrowing. My biography is poor in faces and clashes.”

From the age of fourteen, he began to study systematically on his own, using his father’s small library, which contained books on the natural and mathematical sciences. Then a passion for invention awakens in him. The young man is building balloons from thin tissue paper, makes a small lathe and designs a stroller that was supposed to move with the help of the wind. The stroller model turned out great and walked well in the wind.

K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s father was very sympathetic to his son’s inventions and technical undertakings. K. E. Tsiolkovsky was only 16 years old when his father decided to send him to Moscow for self-education and improvement. He believed that observations of the technical and industrial life of a big city would give a more rational direction to his inventive aspirations.

But what could a deaf young man, who did not know life at all, do in Moscow? From the house of K. E. Tsiolkovsky received 10-15 rubles a month. He ate only black bread and didn’t even have potatoes or tea. But I bought books, retorts, mercury, sulfuric acid, etc. for various experiments and homemade apparatus. “I remember very well,” he wrote in his biography, “that at that time I had nothing except water and black bread. Every three days I went to the bakery and bought 9 kopecks worth of bread there. Thus, I lived on 90 kopecks a month ".

In addition to carrying out physical and chemical experiments, K. E. Tsiolkovsky read a lot, carefully studied courses in elementary and higher mathematics, analytical geometry, and higher algebra. Often, when analyzing a theorem, he tried to find the proof himself. He really liked this, although he did not always succeed.

“At the same time, I was terribly interested in various questions, and I tried to solve them immediately with the help of the acquired knowledge... I was especially tormented by this question - is it possible to use centrifugal force in order to rise beyond the atmosphere, into the celestial spaces?” There was a moment when K. E. Tsiolkovsky thought that he had found a solution to this problem: “I was so excited,” he wrote, “even shocked, that I did not sleep the whole night, wandered around Moscow and kept thinking about the great consequences of my discovery. But by the morning I was convinced of the falsity of my invention. The disappointment was as strong as the charm. This night left a mark on my whole life: 30 years later I still sometimes dream that I am rising to the stars in my car, and I feel like this. the same delight as on that immemorial night."

In the fall of 1879, K. E. Tsiolkovsky passed an external exam for the title of teacher of a public school, and four months later he was appointed to the position of teacher of arithmetic and geometry at the Borovsk district school of the Kaluga province. K. E. Tsiolkovsky set up a small laboratory in his apartment in Borovsk. Electric lightning flashed in his house, thunder rumbled, bells rang, lights came on, wheels spun and illuminations shone. “I offered,” K. E. Tsiolkovsky wrote about these years, “those who wanted to try invisible jam with a spoon. Those tempted by the treat received an electric shock. Visitors admired and marveled at the electric octopus, which grabbed everyone’s nose or fingers with its paws, and then whoever got to him, his hair stood on end and sparks jumped out from any part of the body."

In 1881, 24-year-old K. E. Tsiolkovsky independently developed the theory of gases. He sent this work to the St. Petersburg Physicochemical Society. The work received the approval of prominent members of the Society, including the brilliant chemist D.I. Mendeleev. However, its contents were not news for science: similar discoveries had been made somewhat earlier abroad. For his second work, entitled “Mechanics of the Animal Organism,” K. E. Tsiolkovsky was unanimously elected a member of the Physicochemical Society.

Since 1885, K. E. Tsiolkovsky began to diligently study issues of aeronautics. He set out to create a metal controlled airship (balloon). K. E. Tsiolkovsky drew attention to the very significant shortcomings airships with cylinders made of rubberized material: such shells wore out quickly, were flammable, had very little strength, and the gas filling them was quickly lost due to their permeability. The result of the work of K. E. Tsiolkovsky was the voluminous essay “Theory and Experience of the Balloon.” This essay provides a theoretical basis for the design of an airship with a metal shell (iron or copper); Numerous diagrams and drawings have been developed in the appendices to explain the essence of the matter.

This work on a completely new problem, without literature, without communication with scientists, required incredible tension and superhuman energy. “I worked almost continuously for two years,” wrote K. E. Tsiolkovsky, “I was always a passionate teacher and came from school very tired, since I left most of my strength there. Only in the evening could I begin my calculations and experiments. How There was little time, and also little strength, and I decided to get up at first light and, having already worked on my essay, go to school. After this two-year effort, I felt heavy in my head for a whole year.”

In 1892, K. E. Tsiolkovsky significantly supplemented and developed his theory of an all-metal airship. K. E. Tsiolkovsky published the results of scientific research on this issue using his own meager funds.

The most important scientific achievements of K. E. Tsiolkovsky relate to the theory of rocket motion and jet devices. For a long time, like his contemporaries, he did not attach of great importance rockets, considering them a matter of fun and entertainment. But at the end of the nineteenth century, K. E. Tsiolkovsky began the theoretical development of this issue. In 1903, his article “Exploration of world spaces using jet instruments” appeared in the journal Scientific Review. It gave the theory of rocket flight and substantiated the possibility of using jet vehicles for interplanetary communications.

The most important and original discoveries of K. E. Tsiolkovsky in the theory of jet propulsion are the study of the movement of a rocket in space without gravity, the determination of the coefficient useful action rockets (or, as K. E. Tsiolkovsky calls it, rocket recycling), the study of rocket flight under the influence of gravity in the vertical and oblique directions. K. E. Tsiolkovsky was responsible for a detailed study of the conditions of take-off from various planets, and consideration of the problems of returning a rocket from a planet or asteroid to Earth. He investigated the influence of air resistance on the movement of a rocket and gave detailed calculations the necessary supply of fuel for the rocket to penetrate the layer of the earth's atmosphere. Finally, K. E. Tsiolkovsky put forward the idea of ​​composite rockets or rocket trains for exploring outer space.

The results of K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s works in rocket theory have now become classic. First of all, it is necessary to note the law of K. E. Tsiolkovsky, concerning the movement of a rocket in airless space under the influence of only reactive force, and his hypothesis about the constancy of the relative speed of the outflow of combustion products from the rocket nozzle.

From K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s law it follows that the speed of a rocket increases indefinitely with an increase in the amount of explosives, and the magnitude of the speed does not depend on the speed or unevenness of combustion, unless the relative speed of particles ejected from the rocket remains constant. When the supply of explosives is equal to the weight of the rocket shell with people and instruments, then (with a relative speed of ejected particles of 5700 meters per second) the speed of the rocket at the end of the burn will be almost twice that needed to remove itself forever from the lunar gravitational field. If the fuel supply is six times the weight of the rocket, then at the end of combustion it acquires a speed sufficient to move away from the Earth and transform the rocket into a new independent planet - a satellite of the Sun.

K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s work on jet propulsion is not limited to theoretical calculations; they contain practical instructions design engineer for the design and manufacture of individual parts, fuel selection, nozzle outline; The issue of creating flight stability in airless space is being addressed.

K. E. Tsiolkovsky's rocket is a metal oblong chamber, similar in shape to an airship or an air barrage balloon. In the head, front part of it there is a room for passengers, equipped with control devices, light, carbon dioxide absorbers and oxygen reserves. The main part of the rocket is filled with flammable substances, which, when mixed, form an explosive mass. The explosive mass is ignited in a certain place, near the center of the rocket, and the combustion products, hot gases, flow through the expanding pipe at enormous speed.

Having received the initial calculation formulas for determining the movement of rockets, K. E. Tsiolkovsky outlines an extensive program of consistent improvements to rocket vehicles in general. Here are the main points of this grandiose program:

1. On-site experiments (meaning rocket laboratories where experiments are carried out with fixed rockets).
2. Movement of a jet device on a plane (airfield).
3. Low altitude takeoffs and gliding descents.
4. Penetration into very rarefied layers of the atmosphere, i.e. into the stratosphere.
5. Flight beyond the atmosphere and descent by gliding
6. The foundation of mobile stations outside the atmosphere (like small moons close to the Earth).
7. Using the sun's energy for breathing, nutrition and some other everyday purposes.
8. Using solar energy for movement throughout the planetary system and for industry.
9. A visit to the smallest bodies of the solar system (asteroids or planetoids), located closer and further than our planet from the Sun.
10. The spread of the human race throughout our solar system.

K. E. Tsiolkovsky's research on the theory of jet propulsion was written with a wide scope and an extraordinary rise of imagination. “God forbid me from claiming a complete solution to the issue,” he said, “Inevitably, thought, fantasy, and a fairy tale come first. They are followed by scientific calculation, and in the end, execution crowns the thought.”

Surrendering to the dream of interplanetary travel, K. E. Tsiolkovsky wrote: “First you can fly on a rocket around the Earth, then you can describe one or another path relative to the Sun, reach the desired planet, approach or move away from the Sun, fall on it or leave completely, becoming a comet wandering for many thousands of years in the darkness, among the stars, until it approaches one of them, which will become the new Sun for travelers or their descendants.

Humanity is forming a series of interplanetary bases around the Sun, using asteroids (small moons) wandering in space as material for them.

Jet devices will conquer boundless spaces for people and provide solar energy two billion times greater than what humanity has on Earth. In addition, it is possible to reach other suns, which the jet trains will reach within several tens of thousands of years.

The best part of humanity, in all likelihood, will never perish, but will move from sun to sun as they fade away... There is no end to life, no end to the mind and improvement of humanity. His progress is eternal. And if this is so, then it is impossible to doubt the achievement of immortality."

The essay by K. E. Tsiolkovsky about the composite passenger rocket of 2017 reads like a fascinating novel. The descriptions of people's lives in an environment without heaviness are striking in their wit and insight. I just want to take a walk through the gardens and greenhouses, which fly in airless space faster than a modern artillery shell!

The main works of K. E. Tsiolkovsky are now well known abroad. So, for example, the famous scientist and researcher of jet propulsion in outer space, Professor Hermann Oberg, wrote in 1929 to K. E. Tsiolkovsky: “Dear colleague! Thank you very much for the written material you sent me. I, of course, am the very last one who would challenge Your primacy and your services in the matter of rockets, and I only regret that I did not hear about you until 1925. I would probably be much further in my own work today and would have done without those many wasted efforts, knowing your excellent work. ".

In another letter, the same Oberth says: “You have lit a fire, and we will not let it go out, but we will make every effort to make the greatest dream of mankind come true.” K. E. Tsiolkovsky's rockets are described in detail in a number of scientific and popular magazines and books.

In technical journals abroad in 1928-1929. An extensive discussion was held to justify the derivation of the basic rocket equation. The results of the discussion showed the complete and impeccable validity of K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s formula for the law of rocket motion in space without gravity and without environmental resistance. His hypothesis about the constancy of the relative velocity of particle ejection from the rocket body is accepted in most theoretical studies by scientists from all countries.

The scientific interests of K. E. Tsiolkovsky were not at all limited to issues of jet propulsion, but he consistently returned to the creation of the theory of rocket flight throughout his creative life. After the work “Exploration of world spaces using jet instruments,” published in 1903, K. E. Tsiolkovsky published in the journal “Aeronautics” in 1910 the article “Jet instrument as a means of flight in emptiness and in the atmosphere.” In 1911-1914. three works by K. E. Tsiolkovsky about space flights appeared. After the Great October Socialist Revolution, his scientific activity gained wider scope. He republishes his main works on rockets with additions. In 1927, he published a work on a space rocket (experimental preparation), then the work “Rocket Space Trains,” which provides a detailed study of the movement of composite rockets. He devotes several articles to the theory of the jet airplane:

“The main motive of my life,” said K. E. Tsiolkovsky, “is not to live life in vain, to advance humanity at least a little forward. That’s why I was interested in what did not give me either bread or strength, but I hope that my works - “maybe soon, or maybe in the distant future, they will give society mountains of bread and an abyss of power.” This persistence of quest - the desire to create something new, concern for the happiness and progress of all mankind - determined the entire content of the life of this wonderful person. For a long time, the name of K. E. Tsiolkovsky remained little known even in Russia. He was considered an eccentric visionary, an idealistic dreamer. Scientific merits K. E. Tsiolkovsky received their true assessment only after the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Six days before his death, September 13, 1935, K. E. Tsiolkovsky wrote in a letter to J. V. Stalin: “Before the revolution, my dream could not come true. Only October brought recognition to the works of a self-taught man: only the Soviet government and Lenin’s party - Stalin provided me with effective help. I felt the love of the people, and this gave me the strength to continue my work, already being sick... I pass on all my works on aviation, rocket navigation and interplanetary communications to the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government - the true leaders of the progress of human culture. I am confident that they will successfully complete my work."

The life of K. E. Tsiolkovsky is a real feat. He carried out his theoretical and experimental research under the most difficult conditions. The life of the inspired Kaluga self-taught man is an example of creative daring, determination, the ability to overcome obstacles, and a persistent desire to move forward the science and technology of his time.

The most important works of K. E. Tsiolkovsky: Selected works, Gosmashmetizdat, 1934, book. I - All-metal airship, book. II - Jet propulsion (Rocket into outer space, 1903; Exploration of world spaces with jet instruments, 1926); Space rocket. Experimental training, 1927; Rocket Space Trains, 1929; New airplane, 1929; Pressure on a plane during its normal movement in the air, 1929; Jet airplane, 1930; Semi-jet stratoplane, 1932.

About K. E Tsiolkovsky: Moiseev N.D., K.E. Tsiolkovsky (experience of biographical characteristics), in volume I Izbr. works of K. E. Tsiolkovsky; Rynin N. A., Chronological list of works by K. E. Tsiolkovsky, ibid.; Him, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, his life, work and rockets, L., 1931; K. E. Tsiolkovsky (collection of articles), ed. Aeroflot, M., 1939; History of aeronautics and aviation in the USSR, M., 1944.

Name: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Age: 78 years old

Activity: self-taught scientist, inventor, teacher, founder of theoretical astronautics

Marital status: was married

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky: biography

For years people have been trying to find answers about the structure of the Universe, looking at mysterious stars and dreaming of conquering space. Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky brought humanity closer to the conquest of airspace.

His works served as an incentive to create powerful rockets, aircraft and orbital stations. The progressive and innovative ideas of the thinker often did not coincide with public opinion, but the scientist did not give up. Tsiolkovsky's ingenious research glorified Russian science in the world community.

Childhood and youth

In the fall of 1857, a boy was born into the Tsiolkovsky family. The child’s parents lived in the village of Izhevskoye, Ryazan province. The priest named the baby Constantine at baptism. Eduard Ignatievich (father) was considered the scion of an impoverished noble family, whose roots went back to Poland. Maria Yumasheva (mother) is Tatar by origin, was educated at a gymnasium, so she could teach her children to read and write herself.

Mom taught her son to write and read. Afanasiev's "Fairy Tales" becomes Konstantin's primer. According to this book, a smart boy puts letters into syllables and words. Having mastered the technique of reading, the inquisitive child became acquainted with the numerous books that were present in the house. Tsiolkovsky’s older brothers and sisters considered the baby an inventor and a dreamer and did not like to listen to children’s “nonsense.” Therefore, Kostya inspiredly told his little brother his own thoughts.

At the age of 9, the child contracted scarlet fever. The painful illness caused hearing complications. Hearing loss deprived Konstantin of most of his childhood experiences, but he did not give up and became interested in craftsmanship. Cuts and glues crafts from cardboard and wood. From under the hands of a gifted child come sleighs, clocks, houses and tiny castles. He also invented a stroller that ran against the wind, thanks to a spring and a mill.

In 1868, the family was forced to move to Kirov, Vyatka province, as the father lost his job and went to join his brothers. Relatives helped the man with work, finding him a job as a forester. The Tsiolkovskys inherited a merchant's house - the former property of Shuravin. A year later, the teenager and his brother entered the men's “Vyatka Gymnasium”. The teachers turned out to be strict and the subjects difficult. Studying is difficult for Konstantin.

In 1869, his older brother, who studied at the Naval School, died. The mother, unable to survive the loss of her child, died a year later. Kostya, who dearly loved his mother, plunges into mourning. The tragic moments of his biography had a negative impact on the boy’s studies, who had not achieved excellent grades before. A 2nd grade student is left to repeat the second year due to poor academic performance, and his peers cruelly mock him for his deafness.

A student who was behind in grade 3 was expelled. After this, Tsiolkovsky was forced to engage in self-education. Being at home, the teenager calmed down and began to read a lot again. The books provided the necessary knowledge and did not reproach the young man, unlike the teachers. In his parents' library, Konstantin discovered the works of eminent scientists and enthusiastically began studying them.

By the age of 14, a gifted boy develops his own engineering abilities. He independently creates a home lathe, with which he makes non-standard gizmos: moving strollers, windmill, a wooden locomotive and even an astrolabe. His passion for magic tricks prompted Konstantin to create “magic” chests of drawers and drawers in which objects mysteriously “disappeared.”

Studies

The father, having examined the inventions, believed in his son’s talent. Eduard Ignatievich sends the young talent to Moscow, where he was supposed to enter the Higher technical school. It was planned that she would live with my father’s friend, to whom they wrote a letter. Absent-mindedly, Konstantin dropped the piece of paper with the address, remembering only the name of the street. Arriving at Nemetsky (Baumansky) passage, he rented a room and continued his self-education.

Due to natural shyness, the young man did not decide to enroll, but remained in the city. The father sent the child 15 rubles a month, but this money was sorely lacking.

The young man saved on food because he spent money on books and reagents. From the diaries it is known that he managed to live on 90 kopecks a month, eating only bread and water.

Every day from 10:00 to 16:00 he sits in the Chertkovsky library, where he studies mathematics, physics, literature, and chemistry. Here Konstantin meets the founder of Russian cosmism - Fedorov. Thanks to conversations with the thinker, the young man received more information than he could have learned from professors and teachers. It took the young talent three years to fully master the gymnasium program.

In 1876, Tsiolkovsky’s father became seriously ill and called his son home. Returning to Kirov, the young man recruited a class of students. Invented own methodology teaching, which helped children fully assimilate the material. Each lesson was demonstrated clearly, which made it easier to consolidate what was learned.

At the end of the year, Ignat, Konstantin’s younger brother, died. The man took this news hard, since he had loved Ignat since childhood and trusted him with his innermost secrets. After 2 years, the family returned to Ryazan, planning to buy apartment building. At this moment, a quarrel occurs between father and son, and the young teacher leaves the family. With the money he earned from tutoring in Vyatka, he rents a room and looks for new students.

To confirm his qualifications, a man takes exams as an external student at the First Gymnasium. Having received the certificate, he is assigned to Borovsk, to his place of public service.

Scientific achievements

The young theorist draws graphs every day and systematically composes manuscripts. At home he constantly experiments, as a result of which miniature thunder rumbles in the rooms, tiny lightning flashes, and paper people dance on their own.

The Scientific Council of the Russian Federal Chemical Society decided to include Tsiolkovsky among the scientists. The committee staff realized that the self-taught genius would make a significant contribution to science.

In Kaluga, a man wrote works on astronautics, medicine, and space biology. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is known not only for his inventions, but also for his amazing thoughts about space. His “cosmic philosophy” expanded the boundaries of living space and opened the way to heaven for man. The brilliant work “The Will of the Universe” proved to humanity that the stars are much closer than it seems.

List of scientific discoveries

• In 1886 he developed a balloon based on his own drawings.
• For 3 years, the scientist has been working on ideas related to rocket science. Tries to put a metal airship into operation.
• Using mathematical drawings and calculations, it confirms the theory about the admissibility of launching a rocket into space.
• He developed the first models of rockets launched from an inclined plane. The professor's drawings were used to create the Katyusha artillery mount.
• Built a wind tunnel.

• Designed an engine with gas turbine traction.
• He created a drawing of a monoplane and substantiated the idea of ​​a two-wing aircraft.
• Came up with a diagram of a train moving on air cushion.
• Invented a landing gear that extends from the lower cavity of an aircraft.
• Researched types of rocket fuels, recommending a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.
• He wrote a science-fantasy book, “Beyond Earth,” in which he talked about man’s amazing journey to the Moon.

Personal life

Tsiolkovsky's wedding took place in the summer of 1880. Having married without love, I hoped that such a marriage would not interfere with work. The wife was the daughter of a widower priest. Varvara and Konstantin were married for 30 years and gave birth to 7 children. Five of the children died in infancy, and the remaining two died as adults. Both sons committed suicide.

The biography of Konstantin Eduardovich is replete with tragic events. The scientist is haunted by the death of relatives, fires and floods. In 1887, the Tsiolkovsky house burned to the ground. Manuscripts, drawings and models were lost in the fire. The year 1908 is no less sad. The Oka overflowed its banks and flooded the professor’s home, destroying unique circuits and machines.

The scientific achievements of the genius were not appreciated by the workers of the Socialist Academy. The Society of World Studies Lovers saved Tsiolkovsky from starvation by awarding him a pension. The authorities remembered the existence of a talented thinker only in 1923, when the press published a report by a German physicist on space flight. The state assigned the Russian genius a lifelong subsidy.

Death

In the spring of 1935, doctors diagnosed the professor with stomach cancer. Having learned the diagnosis, the man made a will, but refused to go to hospital. Exhausted by constant pain, he agreed to undergo surgery in the fall.

Doctors urgently removed the tumor, but were unable to stop the division of cancer cells. The next day, a telegram was delivered to the hospital from, who wished a speedy recovery.

The great scientist died in the fall of the same year.

• I went deaf after scarlet fever,
• I studied the university program on my own for 3 years,
• Known as a phenomenal teacher and a favorite of children,
• Considered an atheist
• A museum was built in Kaluga, where photographs and household items of the scientist are displayed,
• Dreamed of an ideal world where there are no crimes,
• He proposed dismembering murderers into atoms,
• Calculated the flight length of a multi-stage rocket.

Quotes

• “We must abandon all the rules of morality and law that have been instilled in us if they harm higher goals. Everything is possible for us and everything is useful - this is the basic law of the new morality.”
• “Time may exist, but we do not know where to look for it. If time exists in nature, then it has not yet been discovered.”
• “For me, a rocket is only a way, only a method of penetrating into the depths of space, but by no means an end in itself... There will be another way of traveling into the depths of space, and I will accept that too. The whole point is to move from Earth and populate space.”
• “Humanity will not remain forever on Earth, but in pursuit of light and space, it will first timidly penetrate beyond the atmosphere, and then conquer the entire circumsolar space.”
• “There is no creator god, but there is a cosmos that produces suns, planets and living beings: no almighty god, but there is a Universe that controls the fate of everyone celestial bodies and their inhabitants."
• “What is impossible today will be possible tomorrow.”

Bibliography

• 1886 - Balloon theory
• 1890 - On the issue of flying with wings
• 1903 - Natural foundations of morality
• 1913 - Separation of man from the animal kingdom
• 1916 - Living conditions on other worlds
• 1920 - Influence of varying severity for life
• 1921 - World disasters
• 1923 - The meaning of the science of matter
• 1926 - Simple solar heater
• 1927 - Conditions of biological life in the universe
• 1928 - Perfection of the Universe
• 1930 - The era of airship construction
• 1931 - Reversibility of chemical phenomena
• 1932 - Is perpetual motion possible?

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, whose discoveries made a significant contribution to the development of science, and his biography is of interest not only from the point of view of his achievements, is a great scientist, a world-famous Soviet researcher, the founder of cosmonautics and a promoter of space. Known as the developer of a device capable of conquering outer space.

Who is he - Tsiolkovsky?

Brief is a shining example his dedication to his work and perseverance in achieving his goal, despite difficult life circumstances.

The future scientist was born on September 17, 1857, not far from Ryazan, in the village of Izhevskoye.
Father, Eduard Ignatievich, worked as a forester, and mother, Maria Ivanovna, who came from a family of small-scale peasants, ran a household. Three years after the birth of the future scientist, his family, due to difficulties encountered by his father at work, moved to Ryazan. Basic training Konstantin and his brothers were taught (reading, writing and basic arithmetic) by their mother.

Tsiolkovsky's early years

In 1868, the family moved to Vyatka, where Konstantin and his younger brother Ignatius became students at the men's gymnasium. Education was difficult, the main reason for this was deafness - a consequence of scarlet fever, which the boy suffered at the age of 9. In the same year, a great loss occurred in the Tsiolkovsky family: Konstantin’s beloved older brother, Dmitry, died. And a year later, unexpectedly for everyone, my mother passed away. The family tragedy had a negative impact on Kostya’s studies, and his deafness began to progress sharply, increasingly isolating the young man from society. In 1873, Tsiolkovsky was expelled from the gymnasium. He never studied anywhere else, preferring to pursue his education independently, because books generously provided knowledge and never reproached him for anything. At this time, the guy became interested in scientific and technical creativity, even designed a lathe at home.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky: interesting facts

At the age of 16, Konstantin light hand The father, who believed in his son’s abilities, moved to Moscow, where he unsuccessfully tried to enter the Higher Technical School. Failure did not break the young man, and for three years he independently studied such sciences as astronomy, mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, communicating with others using a hearing aid.

The young man visited the Chertkovsky public library every day; it was there that he met Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov, one of the founders of this outstanding man replaced the young man with all the teachers combined. Life in the capital turned out to be unaffordable for Tsiolkovsky, and he spent all his savings on books and instruments, so in 1876 he returned to Vyatka, where he began to earn money by tutoring and private lessons in physics and mathematics. Upon returning home, Tsiolkovsky’s vision deteriorated greatly due to hard work and difficult conditions, and he began to wear glasses.

Students came to Tsiolkovsky, who established himself as a highly qualified teacher, with great eagerness. When teaching lessons, the teacher used methods developed by himself, among which visual demonstration was key. For geometry lessons, Tsiolkovsky made models of polyhedra from paper; Konstantin Eduardovich taught them together with his students; he earned the reputation of a teacher who explained the material in an understandable way. accessible language: His classes were always interesting. In 1876, Ignatius, Constantine’s brother, died, which was a very big blow for the scientist.

Personal life of a scientist

In 1878, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky and his family changed their place of residence to Ryazan. There he successfully passed the exams to obtain a teacher's diploma and got a job at a school in the city of Borovsk. At the local district school, despite the considerable distance from the main scientific centers, Tsiolkovsky actively conducted research in the field of aerodynamics. He created the foundations of the kinetic theory of gases, sending the available data to the Russian Physico-Chemical Society, to which he received an answer from Mendeleev that this discovery had been made a quarter of a century ago.

The young scientist was very shocked by this circumstance; his talent was taken into account in St. Petersburg. One of the main problems that occupied Tsiolkovsky’s thoughts was the theory of balloons. The scientist developed his own version of the design of this aircraft, characterized by a thin metal shell. Tsiolkovsky outlined his thoughts in his work of 1885-1886. "Theory and experience of the balloon."

In 1880, Tsiolkovsky married Varvara Evgrafovna Sokolova, the daughter of the owner of the room in which he lived for some time. Tsiolkovsky's children from this marriage: sons Ignatius, Ivan, Alexander and daughter Sophia. In January 1881, Konstantin's father died.

A short biography of Tsiolkovsky mentions such a terrible incident in his life as the fire of 1887, which destroyed everything: modules, drawings, acquired property. Only the sewing machine survived. This event was a heavy blow for Tsiolkovsky.

Life in Kaluga: a short biography of Tsiolkovsky

In 1892 he moved to Kaluga. There he also got a job as a teacher of geometry and arithmetic, while simultaneously studying astronautics and aeronautics, and built a tunnel in which he checked aircraft. It was in Kaluga that Tsiolkovsky wrote his main works on theory and medicine, while at the same time continuing to study the theory of the metal airship. With his own money, Tsiolkovsky created about a hundred different models of aircraft and tested them. Konstantin did not have enough personal funds to conduct research, so he turned for financial assistance to the Physicochemical Society, which did not consider it necessary to financially support the scientist. Subsequent news of Tsiolkovsky's successful experiments nevertheless prompted the Physicochemical Society to allocate him 470 rubles, which the scientist spent on the invention of an improved wind tunnel.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky pays increasing attention to the study of space. 1895 was marked by the publication of Tsiolkovsky’s book “Dreams of Earth and Sky,” and a year later he began work on a new book: “Exploration of Outer Space Using a Jet Engine,” which focused on rocket engines, cargo transportation in space, and fuel features.

The hard twentieth century

The beginning of the new, twentieth century was difficult for Konstantin: money was no longer allocated to continue important research for science, his son Ignatius committed suicide in 1902, five years later, when the river flooded, the scientist’s house was flooded, many exhibits, structures and unique calculations. It seemed that all the elements of nature were set against Tsiolkovsky. By the way, in 2001, a strong fire occurred on the Russian ship Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, destroying everything inside (as in 1887, when the scientist’s house burned down).

Last years of life

A short biography of Tsiolkovsky describes that the scientist’s life became a little easier with the advent of Soviet power. The Russian Society of Lovers of World Studies gave him a pension, which practically prevented him from starving to death. After all, the Socialist Academy did not accept the scientist into its ranks in 1919, thereby leaving him without a livelihood. In November 1919, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was arrested, taken to Lubyanka and released a few weeks later thanks to the petition of a certain high-ranking party member. In 1923, another son, Alexander, died, who decided to take his own life.

The Soviet authorities remembered Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the same year, after the publication of G. Oberth, a German physicist, about space flight and rocket engines. During this period, the living conditions of the Soviet scientist changed dramatically. Management Soviet Union drew attention to all his achievements, provided comfortable conditions for fruitful work, and assigned a personal lifetime pension.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, whose discoveries made a huge contribution to the study of astronautics, died in his native Kaluga on September 19, 1935 from stomach cancer.

Achievements of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The main achievements to which Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, the founder of astronautics, devoted his entire life are:

• Creation of the country's first aerodynamic laboratory and wind tunnel.
• Development of a methodology for studying the aerodynamic properties of aircraft.
• More than four hundred works on the theory of rocketry.
• Work on justifying the possibility of traveling into space.
• Creating your own diagram gas turbine engine.
• Presentation of a rigorous theory of jet propulsion and proof of the need to use rockets for space travel.
• Design of a controlled balloon.
• Creation of a model of an all-metal airship.
• The idea of ​​launching a rocket with an inclined guide, successfully used at the present time in multiple launch rocket systems.

He first entrusted the words of his prayer to pen and paper when he was 30 years old: “Father who lives in heaven! Let everyone living on Earth know about your existence. Let them recognize the one who created the Sun, stars, planets and the creatures living on them. Let them know about the omnipotent, the mighty... Let them know the righteous! Let them recognize the one who cares about unfortunate humanity! Let them know and honor! Let the unfortunate bow their heads to achieve happiness!”

Had he then already penetrated the edge of the unknown? We don't know this. But he did not ask for himself. For the brothers of their people - “let them know”...

The father of Russian cosmonautics, a legendary man, as he was presented to us at school; by the end of his life, his soul was rooting for everyone. I dreamed of seeing a person, or whatever - all of humanity, happy.

And he asked himself whether he himself had done everything he could for this: “They are dying in my years, and I am afraid that you will leave this life with bitterness in your heart, without learning from me (from a pure source of knowledge) that you continuous joy awaits. I want this life of yours to be a bright dream of the future, of never-ending happiness... I want to delight you with the contemplation of the UNIVERSE, with the fate awaiting everyone, with the wonderful history of the past and future of each atom.

This will increase your health, lengthen your life and give you the strength to endure adversity.”

In his declining years, it seemed to Tsiolkovsky that one life was too short to have time to say and convey the most important thing. Perhaps so. But it was a sin for the old scientist to complain about fate...

He was born on September 5 (old style) 1857 in the village of Izhevsk. In the Ryazan region. Some would say - in the very heart of Russia. Then Konstantin Eduardovich jokingly, probably, wrote about that day in his autobiography: “A new citizen of the Universe has appeared.”

I learned to read from Afanasyev's fairy tales. For each new letter of the alphabet he learned, his mother gave the boy a penny. Already a gray-haired old man, he will remember: “I was drawn to fairy tales almost from the cradle. Sometimes, don’t feed me gingerbread, just let me listen to a fairy tale.”

Little Kostya also loved to invent. He made doll skates, houses, and clocks with weights. Cardboard and paper were used, and everything was sealed with sealing wax. The pinnacle of children's fantasy was a toy car driven by a stream of steam.

The world fell silent for the boy when he was 10 years old. After suffering from scarlet fever, he lost his hearing. Deafness brought with it bitterness and loneliness. All his life he then learned to listen to the voices of silence.

But he must not indulge in despair for too long. Somewhere in the depths of the heart, it seems, a distant, inexplicable call is already sounding. He doesn’t yet know his future, but he already has a presentiment... With humor and clumsy youthful maximalism, Kostya Tsiolkovsky writes in a letter to the girl he’s in love with: “I’m so great man, which has not yet happened and will not happen."

At the age of 16, Tsiolkovsky sets off to conquer Moscow. His only path is self-education. Well, that means we need to go through this path to the end...

He will spend three years in Moscow. Three long years. Three happy years. Half-starved, subsisting on bread and water, he spends all the money his father sends him - 10-15 rubles a month - on books. Disappears in libraries for months. Reads, reads, reads... What faith supports his strength? What does he hope for? What does he dream about?

Books became his true friends. They taught him. He answered them with love...

The fate of the libraries that Tsiolkovsky collected with great care throughout his life was mysterious. It seems that the books, like their owner, have been subjected to severe trials of fate more than once. They needed to be reborn. Sometimes - literally and figuratively - from the ashes.

The first library of Konstantin Eduardovich in Borovsk was destroyed by fire.

In Kaluga, a newly assembled book collection was destroyed by a flood.

After the death of the scientist, the one and a half thousand collection of books was transferred to the Tsiolkovsky apartment museum. However, during the war, during the occupation of Kaluga, the Germans placed their headquarters in the museum. They heated it with books. Defenseless and inopportunely at hand...

Tsiolkovsky received his first appointment in 1880. Externally passed exams for the title of teacher in district schools. He goes to the city of Borovsk, Kaluga province. Teach arithmetic and geometry. Teach children and develop ideas about interplanetary travel.

All his students studied without failing. Writer Viktor Shklovsky recalled about teacher Tsiolkovsky: “He knew how to tell children in such a way that it was as if they, together with him in a bright flock, holding each other, flew to the stars.”

He moved to Kaluga 12 years later, in 1892. There he will remain until the end of his days. Teach, write articles and books, think about the fate of humanity and the Universe, dream.

A person must serve the Supreme - this is what Tsiolkovsky believed. And he served. To the starry sky and your homeland. To people.

Behind everything he did there was something more than the visible results of his work.

He devoted his life to the problems of space flight and airship construction. The ideas for an artificial Earth satellite, a multi-stage rocket, a liquid rocket engine and an engine using nuclear fission - all these ideas also belong to Tsiolkovsky. But to speak of him only as the father of astronautics would mean to impoverish everything he did.

“Many people think that I worry about the rocket and worry about its fate because of the rocket itself. This would be a grave mistake. For me, rockets are only a way, only a method of penetrating into the depths of Space, but by no means an end in itself...

My rocket should serve cosmic philosophy,” said the scientist.

He was a philosopher, astronomer, mechanic, mathematician, biologist, chemist, inventor... He worked in the field of studying solar energy, air resistance, in the field of astrophysics and aeronautics, astrobotany. His projects of interplanetary travel using a special rocket and a metal airship received universal fame and recognition.

But most importantly, he was a dreamer. And it seemed that his dreams were inexhaustible.

“To stand with your foot on the soil of asteroids, to lift a stone from the Moon with your hand, to set up moving stations in ethereal space, to form living rings around the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, to observe Mars at a distance of several tens of miles, to descend on its satellites or even its very surface - what, apparently it could be crazier! However, only from the moment of the use of jet instruments will a new, great era in astronomy begin - the era of a more careful study of the Sky.”

It was a fairy tale then. Today it no longer exists. It was as if Tsiolkovsky had his own recipe for predicting the future. He wrote about human will, about the ability of “a rational being to choose in advance a course of action, to coordinate its thoughts about the future with the actual future.” What the man said, he did. What he predicted, foresaw, calculated, that’s what happened.

Konstantin Eduardovich wrote a lot. He published his works in Kaluga using his own meager teacher money. These books are very different. Fantasies, calculations, reasoning, drawings. Some of them were included in textbooks. There are also those who are naive from the standpoint of today: the past decades have changed a lot in the world of technology and in public life.

But scatterings of amazing, fantastically accurate predictions catch the eye everywhere.

Light, bookcase-like airplanes broke with a crash in front of the eyes of the hippodrome crowd, and Tsiolkovsky wrote in 1911: “The airplane will be the most in a safe way movement."

As if guessing about the future discovery of the laser, he spoke of the need to create space communications using “a parallel beam of electromagnetic rays with a short wavelength, electric or even light.”

Tsiolkovsky described in his writings the principle of operation of a gyroscope, without which the flights of airplanes and rockets are unthinkable today.

In his thoughts about man’s entry into space, it was as if he had already seen the space suits of Eliseev and Khrunov and the lunar module of the American Apollo spacecraft.

Tsiolkovsky's ideas rarely turned out to be empty flowers. The incomprehensible instinct of a seer rarely betrayed him. Tsiolkovsky could not even imagine all the current technical difficulties of space flight. But how could he be completely on " empty space“speak and think about it seriously, defining certain details with amazing accuracy?..

Yuri Gagarin, returning from his first flight, will say: “Tsiolkovsky’s book describes the factors of space flight very well, and the factors that I encountered were almost no different from his description.”

A modest district teacher from the tiny town of Borovsk has already mentally walked the star road of Yuri Gagarin, finishing his space diary “Free Space” on April 12 (exactly 78 years before Gagarin’s flight!).

“I am absolutely sure that... interplanetary travel - theoretically substantiated by me - will turn into reality. For forty years I worked on the jet engine and thought that the walk to Mars would begin only in many hundreds of years. But deadlines change. I am sure that many of you will witness the first transatmospheric journey. Heroes and daredevils will lay the first air routes: Earth - the orbit of the Moon, Earth - the orbit of Mars, and even further: Moscow - Moon, Kaluga - Mars...

I will be glad if my work encourages others to continue their work.”

Tsiolkovsky never stooped in his dreams. I wasn't afraid that they would hit low ceiling his Kaluga light. “A person must overcome the gravity of the earth at all costs and have at least space in reserve solar system" Let his testing ground be only modest desk in the office and a regular home workshop with a lathe, a carpenter's vice and a simple set of tools. One of his contemporaries said: “It’s not the price of the violin, but the talent of the musician.”

“I was chock-full of unearthly, that is, unusual human ideas, always hovering in the clouds...” we read in Tsiolkovsky’s autobiography “Fate, Fate, Destiny.” - But who two hundred years ago believed in railways, steamships, airplanes, telegraph, phonographs, radios, cars of various kinds...”

There were countless refusals and derogatory reviews that Tsiolkovsky received for his articles. And a tenth of them would be enough to abandon all these crazy projects. But Tsiolkovsky was not like that. At external slowness Despite his almost painful shyness, he was persistent and unusually courageous. And in his conviction he was not afraid to look funny. Yes, they laughed at him, watching him blow air through his models on the roof in windy weather, clearing them of dust. Or looks at the stars through a telescope. He didn't notice the ridicule. “We, taught by history, must be more courageous and not stop our activities because of failures,” he wrote. “We need to look for their causes and eliminate them.” These simple words were not an empty declaration. That's how he lived.

In later photographs we see Tsiolkovsky as a calm old man with a penetrating gaze.

He was never the man on a pedestal that he remains in our history.

On the porch of his modest Kaluga house, he cut hair with clippers for children from all over the street. He loved to ride a bicycle and skate. On summer evenings he happily sipped tea in the garden, for many years he wore a lionfish cap with buckles in the shape of lion heads and did not recognize writing utensils, preferring ink bubbles.

He had a large family - seven children - and a small salary.

Life was difficult, sometimes simply hungry, and there was a lot of grief and tears in it (only two daughters outlived their father) - not a single bitter cup of trials befell his fate...

He was a convinced homebody. It took a lot of effort to persuade him to even go to Moscow when his 75th birthday was solemnly celebrated. He didn’t really walk around Kaluga either, because this street running from the Oka River, now named after him, is so steep...

All these small details make the image of the star dreamer from Kaluga close and understandable for us. But something else determined his life.

“I look at life as a dream. With its cessation, an incomprehensible life begins.” Under his feet, around him and raising his head to the stars, he always looked for God in the vast expanses of the Universe.

“Wow, what beauty - the Universe is in front of us. Millions of light years separate us from them, but we see and know them. Miracle! And yet we, people, must prepare for the flight into this stellar Universe - prepare tirelessly. This is the purpose of humanity, the meaning of its existence, to find out why the world, the Universe, the cosmos exist. For what? For what?

The ancient sages... taught that there is a spiritual world, where “there are no tears, no sighs, but life is endless.”

Tsiolkovsky believed in “the idea of ​​immortality of everything that lives and has ever lived, everything is alive and only temporarily exists in non-existence in the form of unorganized matter. The basis of life, indestructible and eternal, is the atom. The atom lives throughout the existence of the Universe.”

And life is everywhere life in matter itself,
In the depths of matter - from edge to edge
Solemnly flowing in the fight against the great darkness
It suffers and burns, never stopping anywhere.

Over the years, his views became closer and closer to the teachings of the Buddha. The Russian scientist studied the ancient wisdom of the East and even wrote an article called “Nirvana”.

“Natural and artificial selection... over thousands of years can develop very perfect organisms, little sensitive to joys and sufferings - philosophical indifference, the indifference of the Buddha. Not mortal peace, but a life rich in deeds, great deeds, only philosophically calm.

Nirvana is the development of ideal, divine qualities in man as opposed to material, animal, that is, passions.”

For those who wondered about the meaning of life, Tsiolkovsky’s works were a life-giving spring in the desert. The scientist received letters from different cities countries. Words of recognition and gratitude. As in this letter from one student from Moscow: “Your last printed works completed the process of evolution in my inner consciousness, deeply hidden from everyone. Now I will die consciously - calmly. I’ve never been afraid of death before, but I didn’t know why, but now, thanks to you, I know.”

There is no happiness without suffering - this is what the ancient sages believed, and this is what the sage Tsiolkovsky believed. At the same time, he wrote: “The ethics of the cosmos, that is, of its conscious beings, is that there should be no suffering anywhere.”

Tsiolkovsky assigned space a dominant role in earthly life. " Cosmic radiation eternally and continuously pour on the face of the Earth a powerful stream of forces, giving a completely special, new character to the parts of the planet bordering on outer space. The face of the Earth is changed by them, sculpted to a large extent by them... The biosphere is to the same extent, if not to a greater extent, a creation of the Sun as it is a manifestation of the processes of the Earth.

The outer face of the Earth and the life that fills it are the result of the creative influence of cosmic forces.”

“It is not the Earth, but outer space that becomes our Motherland,” wrote Tsiolkovsky’s student Alexander Chizhevsky.

Tsiolkovsky's ideas were close to the basic ideas of Russian cosmism about a single, integral living universe - about the eternal life of the cosmos.

“We need to protect the Cosmos in every blade of grass if we are ready to become Universal citizens.”

The scientist, inventor and physicist Tsiolkovsky searched for God. “God is what controls us all, on which the fate of people, the life and happiness of everything that exists, the fate of suns and planets, the fate of the living and the dead depends. And there is such a God, because it is the Universe, and it originated from the idea of ​​the first cause, it gave birth to life, life intelligence, which should prevail in the cosmos and give happiness to everything.”

“God is the idea of ​​love and solidarity that unites all beings.”

Writer Viktor Shklovsky, who met with famous old man in Kaluga, said that Tsiolkovsky once confessed to him that he was “talking to angels.” According to his concept, angels are the highest intelligent beings, more perfect than people. People in the future and as a result of cosmo-anthropogenic evolution should turn into angels.

We are so accustomed to the unique foresights of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, which have already become a reality, that we cannot ignore his words, the meaning of which is still difficult for us to understand and comprehend.

While deeply studying the issues of the universe, Tsiolkovsky more than once turned to the idea evolutionary development Universe and man.

What will happen to us in the future? After many billions of years?

Tsiolkovsky spoke about “Radiant humanity”. He was well aware that at present the idea of ​​the transformation ahead of us is impossible to understand, but have amazing premonitions ever deceived this great man?

He was convinced that at a certain moment - how can I put it easier? - humanity will merge with the cosmos. Corpuscular matter will turn into ray matter, and humanity will become “immortal in time and infinite in space,” turning into radiant energy high level. As a result, “the brain of higher organisms will turn into an irreversible form of radiant energy, the most perfect form of matter in general... possessing some kind of special cosmic consciousness, diffused in cosmic space.”

The image of a phoenix burning to the ground and rising again has always worried the thinker.

“What has been is what will be, what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” - this is from the Bible. And Tsiolkovsky wrote: “The world is a phoenix. Every death is a cataclysm. The stars, the Sun, planets, microbes, plants, animals and humans are susceptible to it. Cataclysm is an obligatory and inevitable quality of any material individuality. But all of humanity as a whole will fight for its immortality with all the means available to it, which are found in nothing and nowhere, this is reason.”

How did it happen that a man who has been deaf since childhood, is essentially self-educated, a book scholar, a simple inhabitant small house in Kaluga, far from universities and institutes, not at all favored by the attention of his colleagues, the most modest school teacher suddenly taught humanity so many lessons of brilliant scientific and spiritual foresight?

His secret was neither simple nor complex. And do we know this secret? Perhaps he is talking about himself in these words: “As long as I am a man or higher, I know that I live endlessly in different images. It is necessary that there are no bad images.”

Maybe we will find and guess this secret in his love for people. In his devotion to the sky and stars. In an effort to “hurry to live,” because these are also his words: “I am always ashamed of how little I have done for my Motherland.”

Forty-five years after the first recorded prayer, Tsiolkovsky will write another. It’s as if it’s not a prayer anymore, but words of gratitude addressed to heaven...

“I turn to you, the Cause of everything that exists!

Here is the Earth! How huge she is! It can feed a thousand times more people than it feeds now.

How beautiful are its seas, mountains, and air! How much wealth it contains!

Here is the Sun! It emits two billion more rays than the entire Earth receives. Man has been given reason, with the help of which he can use this solar energy. It is enough to feed humanity even when it increases a thousand billion times!..

You are the reason for the infinite number of milky ways...

How limitless are your riches!..

You gave every smallest particle of your Cosmos eternal life. She always was and will be. This life is limitless and blissful.

How I can thank you for your invaluable gifts!..”

IN last year During his life, the great old man was often seen wandering alone along the quiet streets of Kaluga. He walked slowly, like a messenger from other worlds or a person who accidentally and briefly looked here from the future.

In a city park, he sat directly on the ground and thought about something for a long time, leaning his back against a tree trunk...

At the age of 78, he wrote: “... I continue to calculate and invent... How many times have I changed my mind, what thoughts have passed through my brain. These were no longer fantasies, but accurate knowledge based on the laws of nature; new discoveries and new writings are being prepared..."

The last days of his life he continued to fight illness and old age. To do even more, to have time to say, to convey... Something that he had not yet managed to do... He simply really appreciated every moment of life. And he was true to the words he once said: “Man is, first of all, a philosopher and a warrior. He must live to the end."

for the magazine "Man Without Borders"

The biography of Tsiolkovsky is interesting not only from the point of view of his achievements, although this great scientist had many of them. Konstantin Eduardovich is known to many as the developer of the first capable of flying in open space. He is also a renowned scientist in the fields of aerotronautics, aerodynamics and aeronautics. This is a world-famous space explorer. Tsiolkovsky's biography is an example of perseverance in achieving a goal. Even in the most difficult life circumstances, he did not give up continuing his scientific work.

Origin, childhood

Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Eduardovich (years of life - 1857-1935) was born on September 17, 1857 near Ryazan, in the village of Izhevskoye. However, he lived here only for a short time. When he was 3 years old, Eduard Ignatievich, the father of the future scientist, began having difficulties in his service. Because of this, the Tsiolkovsky family moved to Ryazan in 1860.

Mother was studying primary education Constantine and his brothers. It was she who taught him to write and read, and also introduced him to the basics of arithmetic. "Fairy Tales" by Alexander Afanasyev is the book from which Tsiolkovsky learned to read. His mother taught her son only the alphabet, but Kostya figured out himself how to make words from letters.

When the boy was 9 years old, he caught a cold after sledding and fell ill with scarlet fever. The disease progressed with complications, as a result of which Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky lost his hearing. Deaf Konstantin did not despair, did not lose interest in life. It was at this time that he began to become interested in craftsmanship. Tsiolkovsky loved making various figures out of paper.

In 1868, Eduard Ignatievich was again left without work. The family moved to Vyatka. Here the brothers helped Edward get a new position.

Studying at the gymnasium, death of brother and mother

Konstantin, together with Ignatius, his younger brother, began to study at the Vyatka men's gymnasium in 1869. It was with great difficulty that he studied - there were many subjects, and the teachers turned out to be strict. In addition, deafness greatly hindered the boy. The death of Dmitry, Konstantin’s older brother, dates back to the same year. She shocked the whole family, but most of all - her mother, Maria Ivanovna (her photo is presented above), whom Kostya loved very much. In 1870 she died unexpectedly.

The death of his mother shocked the boy. And before this, Tsiolkovsky, who did not shine with knowledge, began to study worse and worse. He became increasingly aware of his deafness, due to which he became increasingly isolated. It is known that Tsiolkovsky was often punished because of his pranks, and even ended up in a punishment cell. Konstantin stayed in second grade for a second year. And then, from the third grade (in 1873), he was expelled. Tsiolkovsky never studied anywhere else. From that time on, he studied independently.

Self-education

Life in Moscow

Eduard Ignatievich, believing in his son’s abilities, decided to send him to Moscow to enter the Higher Technical School (today it is the Bauman Moscow State Technical University). This happened in July 1873. However, Kostya never entered the school for an unknown reason. He continued to study independently in Moscow. Tsiolkovsky lived very poorly, but stubbornly strived for knowledge. He spent all the saved money sent by his father on instruments and books.

The young man went to the Chertkovsky public library every day, where he studied science. Here he met the founder. This man replaced Konstantin's university professors.

In the first year of his life in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky studied physics, as well as the beginnings of mathematics. They were followed by integral and differential calculus, spherical and analytical geometry, and higher algebra. Later, Konstantin studied mechanics, chemistry, and astronomy. In 3 years, he completely mastered the gymnasium curriculum, as well as the main part of the university curriculum. By this time, his father could no longer support Tsiolkovsky’s life in Moscow. Konstantin returned home in the fall of 1876, exhausted and weak.

Private lessons

Hard work and difficult conditions led to deterioration of vision. Tsiolkovsky began wearing glasses after returning home. Having regained his strength, he began giving private lessons in mathematics and physics. After some time, he no longer needed students, since he showed himself to be an excellent teacher. When teaching lessons, Tsiolkovsky used methods he himself developed, among which the main thing was visual demonstration. Tsiolkovsky made models of polyhedra from paper for geometry lessons and taught them together with his students. This earned him the reputation of a teacher who clearly explained the material. The students loved Tsiolkovsky’s classes, which were always interesting.

Death of a brother, passing an exam

Ignatius, Konstantin's younger brother, died at the end of 1876. The brothers had been very close since childhood, so his death was a big blow for Konstantin. The Tsiolkovsky family returned to Ryazan in 1878.

Immediately after his arrival, Konstantin underwent a medical examination, according to the results of which, due to deafness, he was exempted from military service. In order to continue working as a teacher, a confirmed qualification was required. And Tsiolkovsky coped with this task - in the fall of 1879 he passed the exam as an external student at the First Provincial Gymnasium. Now Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky has officially become a mathematics teacher.

Personal life

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the summer of 1880 married the daughter of the owner of the room in which he lived. And in January 1881, Eduard Ignatievich died.

Children of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky: daughter Lyubov and three sons - Ignatius, Alexander and Ivan.

Work at the Borovsky district school, first scientific works

Konstantin Eduardovich worked at the Borovsky district school as a teacher, while simultaneously continuing his research at home. He made drawings, worked on manuscripts, and conducted experiments. His first work was written on the topic of mechanics in biology. In 1881, Konstantin Eduardovich created his first work, which can be considered truly scientific. It's about about the "Theory of Gases". However, then he learned from D.I. Mendeleev, that the discovery of this theory occurred 10 years ago. Tsiolkovsky, despite the failure, continued his research.

Aerostat design development

One of the main problems that occupied him for a long time was the theory of balloons. After some time, Tsiolkovsky realized that this particular task was worth paying attention to. The scientist developed his own balloon design. The result of the work was the essay by Konstantin Eduardovich “Theory and experience of the balloon...” (1885-86). This work substantiated the creation of a fundamentally new design of an airship with a thin metal shell.

Fire in Tsiolkovsky's house

Tsiolkovsky's biography is marked by a tragic event that occurred on April 23, 1887. On this day, he was returning from Moscow after a report on his invention. It was then that a fire broke out in Tsiolkovsky’s house. Models, manuscripts, a library, drawings and all the family property burned in it, except sewing machine(they managed to throw her into the yard through the window). This was a very hard blow for Tsiolkovsky. He expressed his feelings and thoughts in a manuscript called "Prayer".

Moving to Kaluga, new works and research

D. S. Unkovsky, director of public schools, on January 27, 1892, proposed transferring one of the “most diligent” and “most capable” teachers to the Kaluga school. Here Konstantin Eduardovich lived until the end of his days. Since 1892, he worked at the Kaluga district school as a teacher of geometry and arithmetic. Since 1899, the scientist also taught physics classes at the women's diocesan school. Tsiolkovsky wrote his main works on the theory of jet propulsion and medicine in Kaluga. In addition, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky continued to study the theory of the metal airship. The photo presented below is an image of the monument to this scientist in Moscow.

In 1921, after completing his teaching, he was given a lifetime personal pension. From that time until his death, Tsiolkovsky’s biography was marked by immersion in research, implementation of projects, and dissemination of his ideas. He was no longer involved in teaching.

The hardest time

The first 15 years of the 20th century were the most difficult for Tsiolkovsky. Ignatius, his son, committed suicide in 1902. In addition, in 1908, his house was flooded during the flood of the Oka River. Because of this, many machines and exhibits were disabled, and numerous unique calculations were lost.

First a fire, then a flood... It seems that Konstantin Eduardovich was not friendly with the elements. By the way, I remember the fire in 2001 that occurred on a Russian ship. The ship that caught fire on July 13 of this year is the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky motor ship. Fortunately, no one died then, but the ship itself was badly damaged. Everything inside burned down, just like in the fire in 1887, which Konstantin Tsiolkovsky survived.

His biography is marked by difficulties that would break many, but not the famous scientist. And after a while his life became easier. On June 5, 1919, the Russian Society of World Science Lovers made the scientist a member and awarded him a pension. This saved Konstantin Eduardovich from starvation during the period of devastation, since the Socialist Academy did not accept him into its ranks on June 30, 1919 and thereby left him without a livelihood. The significance of the models presented by Tsiolkovsky was also not appreciated in the Physicochemical Society. In 1923, Alexander, his second son, committed suicide.

Recognition of the party leadership

The Soviet authorities remembered Tsiolkovsky only in 1923, after a publication by G. Oberth, a German physicist, about rocket engines and space flights. The living and working conditions of Konstantin Eduardovich changed dramatically after that. The party leadership of the USSR drew attention to such a prominent scientist as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. His biography has long been marked by many achievements, but until some time they were not of interest to the powers that be. And in 1923, the scientist was granted a personal pension and provided with conditions for fruitful work. And on November 9, 1921, they began to pay him a pension for services to science. Tsiolkovsky received these funds until September 19, 1935. It was on this day that Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky died in Kaluga, which became his home.

Achievements

Tsiolkovsky proposed a number of ideas that have found application in rocket science. These are gas rudders designed to control the flight of a rocket; the use of propellant components to cool the outer shell of the spacecraft during the spacecraft's entry into earth's atmosphere etc. Regarding the area rocket fuels, then Tsiolkovsky showed himself here too. He studied many different combustibles and oxidizers, recommended the use of fuel pairs: oxygen with hydrocarbons or hydrogen Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. His inventions include a gas turbine engine circuit. In addition, in 1927, he published a diagram and theory of a hovercraft train. It was Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky who first proposed chassis retractable at the bottom of the body. What he invented, you now know. Airship construction and space flights are the main problems to which the scientist devoted his entire life.

In Kaluga there is a Museum of the History of Cosmonautics named after this scientist, where you can learn a lot, including about such a scientist as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. A photo of the museum building is presented above. In conclusion, I would like to quote one phrase. Its author is Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. His quotes are known to many, and you may know this one. “The planet is the cradle of reason, but you cannot live forever in the cradle,” Tsiolkovsky once said. Today this statement is located at the entrance to the park. Tsiolkovsky (Kaluga), where the scientist is buried.