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About Crookes and Geissler
Vacuum Discharge Tubes

A vacuum discharge tube is a glass vessel into which metal electrodes have been sealed and from which the air has been removed by a vacuum system. The earliest forms of such tubes appeared in the late 17th century but, although experimenters like Jean Picard, Francis Hauksbee, William Morgan, and even Michael Faraday experimented with vacuum discharge tubes, it was not until the 1850s that sufficient technology existed to produce sophisticated versions of such tubes. This technology included efficient vacuum pumps, advanced glassblowing techniques, and the Ruhmkorff induction coil.

Heinrich Geissler, a master glassblower in Bonn, Germany, was the first to make use of this improved technology to create a series of astonishingly beautiful evacuated glass vessels into which he sealed metal electrodes. Geissler's tubes incorporated combinations of fanciful shapes—bells, bubbles, curlicues, twists, and bends—and emitted brilliant and colorful fluorescent light when high voltage was passed through them. The mystique of Geissler's tubes aroused the interest of scientists and artists of his day, resulting in a wave of exploration and experimentation using vacuum discharge tubes that changed the course of phyics.

Another of Geissler's major innovations was the mercury vacuum pump, and in the mid-1860s another German, Heinrich Sprengel, made major improvements to Geissler's pump. In 1870, the English scientist, Sir William Crookes, added yet more innovations to the mercury vacuum-pump system, which made it possible for the system to produce vacuums exceeding one millionth of an atmosphere. With this tool, Crookes became famous for his many vacuum-tube experiments, and such terms as Crookes tube and Crookes vacuum follow his name. Most of the rarest and most beautiful vacuum discharge tubes are of the Crookes type.

PV Scientific Instruments is proud to offer a series of vacuum discharge tubes to enable collectors and experimenters to revisit this fascinating period of science history. These include a Crookes mineral fluorescence tube, a Crookes y tube, and a Crookes type tube featuring a glass bird drinking from a plasma fountain. We also offer a selection of historically accurate working reproductions of induction coils, the power supplies used for vacuum tube experimentation throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the dawn of the twentieth century.