...Franciszek
Rychnowski, Franciszek Dionizy de Welehrad Rychnowski,
using the pseudonym Iks won Chyr (last name written
backwards) (born on October 3, 1850 in Welehrad in
Moravia, died on July 3, 1929 in Lviv) - Polish
entrepreneur, engineer, physicist, photographer and
inventor. He owned 21 Austrian, Hungarian and German
patents for heating boilers, air-conditioning and electric
appliances...
He came from an old Polish gentile family in Moravia, the
Arma coat of arms; from the union of father Antoni
Rychnowski and mother Józefa née Juepfer. He was married
to Maria's teacher .
He was studying at the college of OO. Piarists in Lipnik
near Olomouc, then he studied at the Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering of the Vienna University of Technology.
Already in his youth he was interested in physics, mainly
caloric (the science of heat properties), electrics and
phototechnics .
The first invention, a calorific apparatus reducing fuel
combustion, was patented in 1878, receiving at the World
Exhibition in Paris the great silver and the first gold
medal of the French Nationale Academy, also receiving the
diploma of its honorary member. The technology developed
by him has found application in heating buildings and
brewing, enabling consumption of less than one burnt tree
during one beaker of beer, instead of six are used up to
now. Thanks to this innovation in 1875, he received from
Zamojski the order to modernize the Krasiczyn brewery.
Around 1877 he settled in Lviv. From that moment, for most
of his life, he lived in the city center in a private
tenement no. 15 where his wife Maria Rychnowska ran a
Private Female Teachers' Seminar. The national marshal,
Prince Adam Sapieha , brought him to the city. At his
request, Rychnowski constructed a ventilation system in
the new building of the Lviv parliament. In 1879 he built
dynamoelectric machines designed for lighting the
parliamentary chamber in the newly erecting building of
the Seym in Lviv, for which he obtained the imperial-royal
patent . Thanks to the implementation of his projects,
Rychnowski became a well-known engineer gaining a number
of new orders, including improved the paper mill in
Czerlany and the residence of the Habsburgs in Chernivtsi
.
In Romania, he introduced a number of innovations in
heating systems at the Sinaia castle, receiving a gold
medal of merit from the Serviciu Credincios I class from
the Romanian King Charles I . He also built a fully
automated kitchen in Jassach and worked on technical
improvements of the church of the Three Prelates. In 1888,
Rychnowski was the first to install radiators for heating
the Krakow Cloth Hall .
In the 1890s , Franciszek Rychnowski patented and
described in the " Technical Period " a furnace for
central heating of flats. He was an employee of the
Polytechnic School in Lviv and a member of the Polytechnic
Society in Lviv. In 1902 at the Polytechnic Society
exhibition he presented his products . In 1918, during the
Polish-Ukrainian war, Rychnowski became the commander of
the Civil Guard of the City of Lviv.
He died in Lviv in 1929 and was buried in the quarters 11
at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.
Spheres of Rychnowski's plasma.
In 1891, he observed electrical anomalies, and in 1896, to
further research on them, created a machine thanks to
which, he claimed, he discovered an unknown matter that is
a new form of energy, which he named elektroid .
About his discovery in the same year, he informed the
world's Academies of Skills in St. Petersburg , Rome ,
Stockholm , Philadelphia and Krakow . The discovery gained
international renown and wrote about it scientific and
technical press in Europe, among others Revue du Monde
Invisible , Die ûebersinnt. Welt , La Radiographie ,
Psychologische Studien, Electrical Engineer and popular
press such as Le Radical. A number of Polish titles were
written about engineer Rychnowski and
electro-electricians. The first event was described by "
Kurjer Warszawski ", and later also " Tygodnik Ilustrowany
", " Czas ", " Kosmos ", "Krytyka" and many others. In his
weekly chronicles on July 2, 16 and 30, 1899, the
discovery was also mentioned by Boleslaw Prus. Yes,
Illustrated weekly described the acquisition of elektroid:
"From the machine, the electroid floats with rustling
through the tube; you feel a refreshing smell and a cool
breeze. Objects, put in a tube, are thrown out with such
force that they break the hole in the paper diaphragm. In
the darkroom, the electroid flows out in the form of a
light ball. Void vessels round near in vain then shine
with lunar light, they show the shrine of gravity, they
attract other vessels and objects, they finally show a
double movement: rotation about one's axis and about a
sheaf of light. Elektroid is a very subtle matter, but it
seems to be a dragonfly; exerts pressure on the walls of
the vessel, it can also be collected and stored in the
vessel for a few days. Falling at an angle on the plate,
the electro-reflector is reflected at the same angle in
the form of a visible sheaf of light, at the same time it
creates a radiant star on the disc, whose shines reveal
themselves and change into glowing balls. On the photo
plate, the electoid acts even through the body, impervious
to ordinary light."
Rychnowski compared the electroid to an ether
having energy, which only then is effective and can affect
other bodies when it encounters some obstacle in its path
that will activate it. The electroid concept was later
called the etheroid conception. In the assumption of the
discoverer, the etheroid is the life energy that is the
basis of all physical phenomena. Later similar ideas were
also voiced by other scientists Henri Bergson - élan vital
and Wilhelm Reich with orgone, which together with the
theory of Eng. Rychnowski are currently considered a
pseudoscience that has not been scientifically proven.
Already at the time of publication in the media, polemics
arose. At that time, the inventor's lab in Lviv was
visited by another famous Polish inventor - Jan Szczepanik
, and the engineering committee from the Lviv Polytechnic
was observing the process of creating an electroid.
However, they were unable to take an unequivocal position
on this subject due to closure by Eng. Rychnowski's
backstage of the whole process and construction details of
the device.
Szczepanik, who participated in demonstrations for
journalists organized by Rychnowski, also took a tour to
the invention. He stated that for some effects obtained by
the inventor, there is no need for a new, mysterious
force, because they can be explained on the basis of
conventional science, but he also admitted that he can not
explain certain things without access to source data.
Szczepanika irritated the atmosphere of mystery and
sensation created around the electroid by the media and
the inventor himself. However, it has never unequivocally
confirmed or crossed out the truth of the theory .
Rychnowski kept his secret until the end of his life,
taking him to the grave and therefore the controversies
accompanying the invention may become the subject of
polemics also today.
In the 1920s, he published two books under his pseudonym
and on his own, in which he described some controversial
theories. In the book Mane tekel fares. 44 memories from
the past. Fragments of results from forty-year-old
curative treatments under the academic name of curfewing,
charlatanism and deceitful suggestion describe their
therapeutic method, and in the book Omnia in sole.
Scientific reminiscences their scientific hypotheses. He
signed the publications with palindrome "Iks won Chyr"
created from his name Rychnowski ....