Oskar Walther Vierling | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 24 January 1904 |
| Died | 1986 (aged 81–82) |
| Nationality | German |
| Education | Technische Hochschule Nürnberg in Nuremberg. |
Oskar Walther Vierling (born 24 January 1904 in Straubing, died 1986) was a German physicist, inventor, entrepreneur and professor in high-frequency technology. Vierling was an important inventor and engineer of electronic and electro-acoustic instruments between the 1930s and 1950s. [1]
Oskar Vierling attended school in Regensburg, and graduated with the Obersekundareife. In 1925 he graduated as an engineer at the Technische Hochschule Nürnberg in Nuremberg in Nuremberg, and later attending the Telegrafen technische Reichsamt in Berlin. Vierling then took a position at the Heinrich Hertz Institute. Fritz Sennheiser was his student and joined him in the founding of the high-frequency institute of the University of Hannover.
Vierling was married and had two sons. The children took over the kind of Vierling Group.
In 1929, Vierling along with Walther Nernst, created the Neo-Bechstein Electric Grand piano design, that divided the strings into groups of five, with their own electrostatic pickups. With amplification the strings were thinner and shorter. [2] [3] The Neo-Bechstein piano was eventually manufactured by the C. Bechstein piano factory company in 1932 after completion of development, but proved a commercial disappointment due to financial difficulties in the Bechstein company. [3]
In 1932, Vierling worked with Benjamin Miessner to design and invent the Elektrochord piano, for the August Förster company. The Elektrochord was one of the first electric pianos, whereupon the vibrations of the struck string by the hammer, were electronically recorded and then amplified. The sound was controllable in that it was configurable to provide a range from a salon grand piano to a full concert grand piano. [4]
In 1925, Vierling was promoted to Phd with a thesis titled, The Electroacoustic Piano. [5] In 1938, Vierling was promoted to a full professorship at the Technical University of Hannover, and founded an Institute for the study of high-frequency technology and electro-acoustics.
In 1941, he was commissioned by the Wehrmacht to create the Vierling Group. [6] For this high frequency and electroacoustic armament research, Vierling built the research laboratory Feuerstein Castle in Ebermannstadt, which was located centrally in Germany and disguised as a Franconian castle and hospital. [6] While at the Feuerstein Castle, Vierling developed the first directional radio lines and tested and developed the control for the acoustically controlled G7es torpedo, Torpedo Wren (German : Torpedo Zaunkönig) and later Torpedo Vulture (German : Geier entwickelt. Vierling worked with Erich Hüttenhain at the OKW/Chi, Werner Liebknecht who was Director of Engineering at Referat Wa Prüf 7 of the Waffenamt and Erich Fellgiebel Chief of Wehrmacht communications. Vierling worked with Hüttenhain, Liebknecht and Fellgiebel on the Hazardo machine. This machine was supposed to generate random sequence of teleprinter letters on a normal teleprinter tape. Such a key-hole tape could not be easily duplicated by also directly used for telex encryption or for deriving statistical letters or numerical sequences. [7] Vierling also worked on the improvement of the encryption machine, Lorenz SZ 42. Vierling later worked on the testing of the acoustic ignition of mines, and collaborated in the invention of an anti-radar coating for submarines, with the code name chimney sweep. In addition, Vierling and his team developed radios and electric calculators. [6] Another area that Vierling and his team were working on, was ciphony. Of the six methods the lab developed during the period of World War II to achieve secure voice, none were found to be successful and Vierling failed to develop a secure voice system. [8]
Vierling had an ambivalent relationship to Nazism. On the one hand he was a member of the Nazi party, on the other hand he worked largely independently and was negative in the party apparatus as he was not regularly present at party meetings. [6]
During the post war period, Vierling made his intelligence technology, including Covert listening device, available for use to the Gehlen Organization, that enabled his group to survive. [6] In July 1950, the group working on the Hazardo device, moved in secrecy to Kransberg Castle to continue work. In October 1950, the Hazardo produced the first keyhole strip. With the completion of the device, a separate four-person working group called Schlüsselmittelherstllung was formed to exploit the device. [7]
Between 1949 and 1955 Vierling taught as a Professor of physics at the philosophical Theological College at the University of Bamberg.
The first test of the Deutsche Bundespost with transistors and later on microprocessor-based systems for mail delivery were based on Vierling work.
Walther Hermann Nernst was a German chemist known for his work in thermodynamics, physical chemistry, electrochemistry, and solid state physics. His formulation of the Nernst heat theorem helped pave the way for the third law of thermodynamics, for which he won the 1920 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is also known for developing the Nernst equation in 1887.
An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations which are converted into electrical signals by magnetic pickups, which are then connected to an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to make a sound loud enough for the performer and audience to hear. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument. Instead, it is an electro-mechanical instrument. Some early electric pianos used lengths of wire to produce the tone, like a traditional piano. Smaller electric pianos used short slivers of steel to produce the tone. The earliest electric pianos were invented in the late 1920s; the 1929 Neo-Bechstein electric grand piano was among the first. Probably the earliest stringless model was Lloyd Loar's Vivi-Tone Clavier. A few other noteworthy producers of electric pianos include Baldwin Piano and Organ Company and the Wurlitzer Company.
The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) is the national metrology institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, with scientific and technical service tasks. It is a higher federal authority and a public-law institution directly under federal government control, without legal capacity, under the auspices of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
Foxer was the code name for a British built acoustic decoy used to confuse German acoustic homing torpedoes like the G7 torpedo during the Second World War. A US version codenamed FXR was deployed at the end of September 1943 on all transatlantic escort vessels. A Canadian version was also built called the CAAT device. It was replaced in US service by the Fanfare noisemaker.
C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein.
The electric grand piano is a stringed musical instrument played using a keyboard, in which the vibration of strings struck by hammers is converted by pickups into electrical signals, analogous to the electric guitar's electrification of the traditional guitar.
A sound level meter is used for acoustic measurements. It is commonly a hand-held instrument with a microphone. The best type of microphone for sound level meters is the condenser microphone, which combines precision with stability and reliability. The diaphragm of the microphone responds to changes in air pressure caused by sound waves. That is why the instrument is sometimes referred to as a sound pressure level meter (SPL). This movement of the diaphragm, i.e. the sound pressure deviation, is converted into an electrical signal. While describing sound in terms of sound pressure metrics, such as Pascals, is possible a logarithmic conversion is usually applied and the sound pressure level is stated instead, with 0 dB SPL equal to 20 micropascals.
August Förster is a German piano manufacturing company that currently has a staff of 40 employees and produces around 120 grand pianos and 150 uprights per year.
Harald Bode was a German engineer and pioneer in the development of electronic musical instruments.
Simon Emmerson is an electroacoustic music composer working mostly with live electronics. He was born in Wolverhampton, UK, on 15 September 1950.
Frank Massa (1906–1990) was an American engineer who contributed greatly to the development of the field of acoustical engineering. He is perhaps best known for the development of recorded sound technology for the motion picture industry and, during World War II, the development of the first towed sonar transducers and hydrophones used by the U.S. Navy to detect and defeat German U-boat submarines.
The Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht was the Signal Intelligence Agency of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of the German Armed Forces before and during World War II. OKW/Chi, within the formal order of battle hierarchy OKW/WFsT/Ag WNV/Chi, dealt with the cryptanalysis and deciphering of enemy and neutral states' message traffic and security control of its own key processes and machinery, such as the rotor cipher machine ENIGMA machine. It was the successor to the former Chi bureau of the Reichswehr Ministry.
Feuerstein Castle lies at the edge of the so-called Lange Meile near Ebermannstadt in the county of Forchheim in the south German state of Bavaria. It was built in 1941 by Oskar Vierling as a laboratory for researching High Frequency technology and electroacoustics and was used until 1945 by 250 employees for research into weapons and communication technology as part of the German armaments programme during the Second World War.
Otto Buggisch was a German mathematician who, during World War II, was a cryptanalyst working in the cipher bureau of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW/Chi) responsible for deciphering of the opposing forces Communications. He also dealt with the security control of own key procedures. Through research and revelations exposed by two Polish officers, late in the war, he recognized the true cryptographic weaknesses of the Enigma rotor cipher, key machine used by the German armed forces to encrypt their secret communications, in World War II.
Werner Liebknecht was a German engineer and Beamter who was Director of Engineering at Referat Wa Prüf 7 of the Waffenamt during World War II and who was responsible for the design and development of many of the cryptographic devices used by German Armed Forces during World War II, including the cipher teleprinter attachment, the SZ 40 and the Siemens and Halske T52 secure teleprinter.
Neo-Bechstein or Bechstein-Siemens-Nernst-Flügel were a set of electric grand pianos that were primarily built by Walther Nernst in the 1930s. Improvising upon an electrical prototype by Oskar Vierling, the design was executed around 1922, and the first of the set was marketed in 1931 to critical acclaim. The mechanics of the piano were implemented by the C. Bechstein company and the valve electronics were created by Siemens & Halske. The design belonged to a newer generation of electric pianos that eliminated the presence of any sound board.
The Department of Computer Science is a department of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. With a total of 36 professorships and about 3,700 students in 12 study courses, the Department of Computer Science is the largest department of the university. The department shapes the two research profile areas "Cybersecurity (CYSEC)" and "Internet and Digitization (InDi)" of the university.
German Army cryptographic systems of World War II were based on the use of three types of cryptographic machines that were used to encrypt communications between units at the division level. These were the Enigma machine, the teleprinter cipher attachment, and the cipher teleprinter the Siemens and Halske T52,. All were considered insecure.
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