Editing Werner von Siemens (section)

==Biography==
===Early years===
{{unref|section|date=October 2020}}
Ernst Werner Siemens was born in Lenthe,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Werner von Siemens: A dynamic, visionary entrepreneur |url=https://www.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/stories/werner-von-siemens.html |access-date=2024-01-05 |website=siemens.com Global Website |language=en}}</ref> today part of [[Gehrden]], near [[Hannover]], in the [[Kingdom of Hanover]] in the [[German Confederation]], the third child (of fourteen) of Christian Ferdinand Siemens (31 July 1787 – 16 January 1840) and wife Eleonore Deichmann (1792 – 8 July 1839). His father was a [[tenant farmer]] of the [[Siemens family]], an old family of [[Goslar]], documented since 1384. [[Carl Heinrich von Siemens]] and [[Carl Wilhelm Siemens]] were his brothers.

===Middle years===
After finishing school, Siemens intended to study at the [[Bauakademie]] Berlin.<ref>Werner von Siemens. "Inventor and entrepreneur : recollections of Werner von Siemens". London, England, 1966.</ref> However, since his family was highly indebted and thus could not afford to pay the tuition fees, he chose to join the [[Prussian Military Academy]]'s School of Artillery and Engineering, between the years 1835–1838, instead, where he received his officers training.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hnf.de/en/permanent-exhibition/exhibition-areas/galerie-der-pioniere/werner-von-siemens-1816-1892.html|title=HNF - Werner von Siemens (1816-1892)|website=www.hnf.de}}</ref> Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}, and contributing to the invention of electrically-charged [[sea mine]]s, which were used to combat a Danish blockade of [[Kiel]] during the [[First Schleswig War]].<ref>{{cite web |title=L I F E L I N E S - Werner von Siemens |url=https://assets.new.siemens.com/siemens/assets/api/uuid:79526895df552002ded8cf62384d6c72f155d7e4/2016-lifelines-werner-von-siemens-web.pdf |website=siemens.com |publisher=Siemens Historical Institute, L I F E L I N E S – Volume 5 |access-date=25 January 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Werner Siemens' battle for Friedrichsort Fortress in 1848 |url=https://www.burgerbe.de/2014/11/02/siemens-kampf-um-die-festung-friedrichsort/ |website=Burgerbe.de |date=2 November 2014 |access-date=25 January 2023}}</ref>

Upon returning home from war, he chose to work on perfecting technologies that had already been established and eventually became known worldwide for his advances in various technologies. In 1843 he sold the rights to his first invention to [[Elkington of Birmingham]].<ref>Schwartz & McGuinness ''Einstein for Beginners'' Icon Books 1992</ref> Siemens invented a [[Telegraphy|telegraph]] that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using [[Morse code]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/news/courage-and-ingenuity.html|title=Courage and ingenuity – Siemens' success story begins with the pointer telegraph|website=Siemens Historical Institute|language=en|access-date=5 June 2019}}</ref> Based on this invention, he founded the company ''[[Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske]]'' on 1 October 1847, with the company opening a workshop on 12 October.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/news/the-year-is-1847.html|title=The year is 1847|website=Siemens Historical Institute|language=en|access-date=5 June 2019}}</ref>

The company was internationalised soon after its founding. One brother of Werner represented him in England ([[Carl Wilhelm Siemens|Sir William Siemens]]) and another in [[Saint Petersburg|St. Petersburg]], [[Russia]] ([[Carl Heinrich von Siemens|Carl von Siemens]]), each earning recognition.  Following his industrial career, he was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 in Berlin.{{cn|date=October 2020}}

The company, reorganized as [[Siemens & Halske]], [[Siemens-Schuckertwerke]] and – since 1966 – [[Siemens]] was later led by his brother Carl, his sons [[Arnold von Siemens|Arnold]], [[Georg Wilhelm von Siemens|Wilhelm]], and [[Carl Friedrich von Siemens|Carl Friedrich]], his grandsons [[Hermann von Siemens|Hermann]] and [[Ernst von Siemens|Ernst]] and his great-grandson [[Peter von Siemens]]. Siemens AG is one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world. The von Siemens family still owns 6% of the company shares (as of 2013) and holds a seat on the supervisory board, being the largest shareholder.{{cn|date=October 2020}}

===Later years===
Apart from the pointer telegraph, Siemens made sufficient contributions to the development of [[electrical engineering]] that he became known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world's [[Siemens locomotive of 1879|first electric passenger train]] in 1879,<ref>E. Hoffmann: ''Telegraphy and Electrical Engineering at the Berlin Trade Exhibition in 1879.'' Reprint from: Archiv für Post und Telegraphie 1879, No. 14. Berlin 1879. ([https://www.technik-in-bayern.de/mehr-technik/technikgeschichte/die-erste-elektrische-lokomotive-der-welt-im-blick-der-zeitgenossen Quote p. 17–19] at technik-in-bayern.de)</ref> and the first electric [[elevator]] in 1880.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-elevator-1991600|title=The History of Elevators From Top to Bottom|website=ThoughtCo}}</ref> His company produced the tubes with which [[Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen]] investigated x-rays. He claimed invention of the [[dynamo]] although others invented theirs [[Dynamo#Practical designs|around the same time]]. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the [[Bell System]] in the late 1920s for use as a [[loudspeaker]].<ref>Ed. M. D. Fagen, "A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: The Early Years", Bell Laboratories, 1975, p. 183.</ref> Wente's adaptation was issued {{US patent|1,707,545}} in 1929.

In May 1881, Siemens & Halske inaugurated the world's first electric [[tram]] service, in the [[Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway|Berlin suburb of Groß-Lichterfelde]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Werner von Siemens |url=https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/stories/werner-von-siemens.html |website=siemens.com Global Website |access-date=2021-08-14}}</ref> Siemens is also the father of the [[trolleybus]], which he initially tried and tested on 29 April 1882, using his "[[Electromote|Elektromote]]".

===Personal life===
He was married twice: first in 1852 to Mathilde Drumann (died 1 July 1867), the daughter of the historian [[Wilhelm Drumann]]; second in 1869 to his relative Antonie Siemens (1840–1900). His children from first marriage were [[Arnold von Siemens]] and [[Georg Wilhelm von Siemens]], and his children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens (1870 – 5 January 1939), married in 1899 to [[Carl Dietrich Harries]], and [[Carl Friedrich von Siemens]].

Siemens was an advocate of [[social democracy]],<ref>Werner von Siemens (1893). ''Personal Recollections of Werner Von Siemens''. Asher. p. 373</ref> and he hoped that [[industrial development]] would not be used in favour of [[capitalism]], stating:

{{Quote|A number of great factories in the hands of rich capitalists, in which "slaves of work" drag out their miserable existence, is not, therefore, the goal of the development of the age of natural science, but a return to individual labour, or where the nature of things demands it, the carrying on of common workshops by unions of workmen, who will receive a sound basis only through the general extension of knowledge and civilization, and through the possibility of obtaining cheaper capital.<ref>D. Appleton., (1887). ''Popular Science Monthly'', Volume 30.</ref>}}

He also rejected the claim that science leads to [[materialism]], stating instead:

{{Quote|Equally unfounded is the complaint that the study of science and the technical application of the forces of nature gives to mankind a thoroughly material direction, makes them proud of their knowledge and power, and alienates ideal endeavours. The deeper we penetrate into the harmonious action of natural forces regulated by eternal unalterable laws, and yet so thickly veiled from our complete comprehension, the more we feel on the contrary moved to humble modesty, the smaller appears to us the extent  of our knowledge, the more active is our endeavour to draw more from the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge, and understanding, and the higher rises our admiration of the endless wisdom which ordains and penetrates the whole creation.<ref>Bonnier Corporation. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tyoDAAAAMBAJ Popular Science]'' Apr 1887,Vol. 30, No. 46. {{ISSN|0161-7370}}. pp. 814–820</ref><ref>Werner von Siemens (1895). ''Scientific & technical papers of Werner von Siemens''. J. Murray. p. 518</ref><ref>A similar account is given in Siemens, Werner von  (1893). ''Personal Recollections'', p. 373: "I also tried in my lecture to show that the study of the physical sciences in its further progress and general diffusion would not brutalize men and divert them from ideal aspirations, but on the contrary would lead them to humble admiration of the incomprehensible wisdom pervading the whole creation and must therefore ennoble and improve them."</ref>}}

===Commemoration===
Werner von Siemens' portrait appeared on the {{Reichsmark|20|link=yes}} banknote issued by the [[Reichsbank]] from 1929 until 1939.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://banknote.ws/COLLECTION/countries/EUR/GER/GER0181.htm|title=P-181|website=banknote.ws}}</ref> Printing ceased in 1939 but the note remained in circulation until the issue of the [[Deutsche Mark]] on 21 June 1948.

In 1923, German botanist [[Ignatz Urban]] published ''[[Siemensia]]'', which is a [[monotypic]] [[genus]] of [[flowering plant]] from [[Cuba]] belonging to the family [[Rubiaceae]] and was named in honor of Werner von Siemens.<ref>{{cite web |title=''Siemensia'' Urb. {{!}} Plants of the World Online {{!}} Kew Science |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:296660-2 |website=Plants of the World Online |access-date=19 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref>