Arturo Edmundo Salazar Valencia (Andacollo, Chile, 2 December 1855 – Santiago, Chile, 3 April 1943) was a scientist, researcher, innovator and professor of electrical engineering in Chile, who in his role as a self-taught individual, explored a wide variety of fields of interest and is considered a true pioneer in the technological development of his country.
Biography The son of Ramón Salazar Inostroza and Juana Valencia Ureta, he was born in the mining community of Andacollo, where his father was a military engineer. This individual was a man well ahead of his time, capable of conceiving and presenting in 1861 a project for the construction of a sizable dike or breakwater for the port of Valparaíso, which entailed the dredging of the estuary of Viña del Mar.Proyecto presentado al supremo gobierno en noviembre de 1861, i que fué sometido al examen del jefe del Cuerpo de Injenieros Civiles, Valparaíso, 1861.
Arturo Salazar lost his father at the age of fifteen, but his vocation was already formed, as he served as an assistant in physics in the school run by the French priests in Valparaíso, collaborating with the renowned Frenchman, Fidel Dilley, who helped him take his firststeps.Miguel Laborde Duronea, Pioneros del desarrollo – Ciencia, tecnología, industria en Chile, Santiago, 1987, págs. 66-73 [According to Laborde, he was informed of this in an interview with Mr. Reinaldo Harnecker, author of a tribute made to Salazar]
During his stay in Valparaíso, between 1883 and 1884, he was a physics professor at the Naval Academy, fulfilling this way his pedagogical vocation, while he served at and made his living as the general manager of the Valparaíso Gas Company.
During this period he meets and begins his collaboration with Carlos Newman Andonaegui, a chemistry professor and colleague at the Naval Academy, on a series of publications dealing with topics of national scientific research on matters of daily quality of life, particularly in relation to public health, which would earn him greater prestige both nationally as well as certain recognition abroad.
But Salazar cultivated other interests beyond those of his specialty, shared with scientists and humanists around the world, exchanging correspondence with philosopher Herbert Spencer, the writer Miguel de Unamuno, and the well known philologist Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, and studying topics as diverse as the death penalty, the relationship between science and religion, and the topic of rational orthography, which he personally used in numerous publications as well as his personal correspondence.
In 1896, at age forty, already renowned as a scientist, teacher and individual of great intellectual curiosity, Salazar relocates to Santiago. He had a study tour of Europe in 1889 under his belt, and was seeking new horizons.
Salazar was the initiator of the modern study of Electrical Engineering (known as Electrotechnology during his time) at the Engineering School of the University of Chile, in which he served as chair of Industrial Physics and Electrotechnology for 27 years (1898–1925). During this extended career he stressed the importance of experimental work and laboratories, as well as scientific research being at the core of a modern university.
A portrait of his is kept in the professor's lounge at the School of Engineering of the Physical Sciences and Mathematics Faculty of the University of Chile.
He continued to be a multifaceted scientist: his interest in energy issues led him to propose a visionary project to develop a nationwide, interconnected electrical grid, taking advantage of the great quantity of waterfalls that the mountains provide, without the need for large dams. This vision started to be developed and continues to this day. In recognition of his contributions towards the hydroelectric power development at a national level, ENDESA [the state energy corporation at the time] dedicated a bust of his at the Cipreses hydroelectric power plant, near Talca, in 1955. On the dedication placard he is recognized as "Forerunner of the electrification of the nation".
In 1902 he married Hortensia Justiniano Maturana, and of their children three survived: Hortensia (Kitty), Eugenio and Renato. Following their father's steps, both sons became engineers specializing in the area of electrical power development. Salazar had three sisters: Clementina, Rosa Elvira and Fortunata, of which only the latter outlived him.
Once retired and devoting his days to his family and frequent trips to their country home in Las Hijuelas, Arturo Salazar died in Santiago on April 3, 1943.
Accomplishments His accomplishments began at an early age, and following his studies at the French Priest's school in Valparaiso, he started to work at the Havas Agency [news] there. From then he continued with his studies autodidactically. Among other activities while living in this city, according to an anecdote his widow Hortensia Justiniano recalled, he had been hired on one occasion by city authorities to take responsibility for staging the fireworks spectacle for the New Year's celebration activities in the port.
Telephone and gramophone At 15 years of age (1870), while working at the news agency, he installed for the first time in Chile, a telephone between the agency offices and the Municipality of Valparaiso. Later, in 1878, upon receiving news of Thomas Edison's invention of the previous year, he built the first working, speaking and recording machine (gramophone) in Chile, using cylinders elaborated and recorded by himself, with voices, songs and sounds of nature. His vocation already was oriented toward teaching and he became physics professor at the Naval Academy from 1883 to 1894, while serving as general manager of the Valparaiso Gas Company.Reinaldo Harnecker, "Elogio a los profesores Diego A. Torres y Arturo Salazar", Apartado del No 8-9 de los Anales de la Facultad de Matemáticas de la Universidad de Chile (1952)."Necrología – Don Arturo E. Salazar Valencia", Anales del Instituto de Ingenieros de Chile, Año LVI, No 7-8, pág. 239-243, Julio-Agosto de 1943.
Radiography and collaboration with Luis Ladislao Zegers Recasens In 1896, at age 40, following a study trip to Europe, Salazar moves to Santiago, having been invited to collaborate with Luis Ladislao Zegers, who was tenured professor of industrial physics and electrotechnology in the Engineering School of the Universidad de Chile. It was with him that experiments were conducted leading to the birth of radiology in the nation.
Only three months had elapsed since December 28, 1895, when Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen had delivered the text of a lecture to the "Physikalisch-medizinischen Gesellschaft" in Würzburg. Since this scientific society happened to be on vacation, this lecture, "Ueber eine neue art von stahlen" (On a new form of radiation), was read as a "preliminary communication" on January 23, 1896.
As a result of this publication, the following month, that is in February 1896, professors Zegers and Salazar began experimenting on this new technique in Chile. Success was finally obtained on March 22, 1896, as the first radiograph was made, not only in Chile but in all of Ibero-America. This accomplishment was announced and published on March 27 in the Actes de la Societé Scientifique du Chili (Proceedings of the Scientific Society of Chile), Vol. VI (1896), a monograph of 46 lines: "Experiments on the production of Roentgen rays by means of electric incandescent lights". This was the first work on X-rays published in Latin America. The publication is written in what some termed "rational orthography", which Salazar espoused. The article shows a schematic of the electric circuit used as well as a radiograph of four fingers of Zegers’ right hand, taken five days before the publication. The exposure for this radiograph lasted 14 minutes.
The experiments in taking radiographs didn't turn out to be so simple. It took a month before they could obtain the first radiographs. They were working with an induction coil, with a sufficiently long spark, which they operated using a hand-operated alternator, a Tesla circuit, and a tube made by Salazar. There was at the time not a single Crookes tube in Chile, which is why they began to experiment with light bulbs having a vacuum analogous to these tubes, but lacked the adequate electrodes for the anode. An attempt was made to get an appropriate cathodic flux with these bulbs. This flux of negative particles leaving the filament generate X-rays as a consequence of their collision with an improvised anticathode placed exterior to the light bulb.Zegers, L. y Salazar, A. E., "Esperimentos sobre la produkzion de los rrayos de Roentgen por medio de las lamparillas de kadenzia eléctricas", Actes de la Societé Scientifique du Chili (Actas de la Sociedad Científica de Chile), Tome VI (1896), pp. 21-23.
As the authors themselves explain in their article: "Upon receiving here on February last the first news about Röntgen's discovery, we saw that it was not possible to replicate this physicist's experiments there being not even a single Crookes tube in all of Chile. However, bearing in mind at the same time certain qualities of incandescent light bulbs, generally known as Edisons, we considered that for the generation of the Röntgen rays one could do without the Crookes tubes or others of the same type. We knew that the vacuum of an incandescent lamp of good quality is comparable to that of the Hittorf or Crookes tubes, and that, furthermore, the degree of vacuum in such lamps improves significantly after illuminating 100 or more hours. As for the lack of specialized electrodes, the only remaining obstacle apparently remaining, we decided to solve it by using the filament as cathode and as anode a tin disc or ring place on the exterior of the lamp."
The thousands of volts discharge applied to the lamp was obtained by using an induction coil (Rühmkorff coil) connected to the primary, with a hand-operated alternator. The result was satisfactory: the glass glowed with a blue fluorescence. It was a while before they realized that the color was due to the lead content of the glass. They then tested Edison bulbs, of lead-free glass, of English manufacture, with which they obtained a light green fluorescence. However, despite that, well-wrapped photographic plates at an adequate distance weren't exposed. They were too old, so that when they were exchanged for freshly made plates with more sensibility, these began to undergo exposure to radiologic images. They were thus able to obtain radiographs fairly regularly. Later on there arrived from Europe adequate tubes for taking radiographs.
In the initial correspondence between Salazar, Zegers and Newman, these images were referred to as "ombrographs".Letter from K. Newman to A. E. Salazar, April 6, 1896.
Radiocommunications Traditionally, the first radio transmission to take place in Chile that is celebrated is the one that took place between the seat of the Technical State University and the hall of the newspaper El Mercurio on August 22, 1922. Professor Salazar, along with his assistant in the Electronics department, both great radio enthusiasts, succeeded in this trial with the coordination of the Army Communications Battalion. Professor Salazar had installed the transmitter in the university, while Sazié, using elements personally devised by him for this purpose, installed the receiving station in the hall of El Mercurio.