Golubitskii, Pavel

Born Mar. 16 (28), 1845. in Tarusa, in present-day Kaluga Oblast; died there Jan. 27 (Feb. 9), 1911. Russian inventor in the field of telephony.

Golubitskii graduated from the department of physics and mathematics of the University of St. Petersburg in 1870. He created the first original telephone (the so-called vibrator model) in 1878. He invented multipolar telephones (1882), a carbon duct microphone (1883), and a microphone with the carbon in a pectinate arrangement (1885); in the same year he worked out a system for supplying the microphones of subscribers from a common battery in a central telephone station. This arrangement made possible the creation of large urban telephone networks. Golubitskii invented a switchboard (1886) that permitted paired connections between several telephone lines. Golubitskii was a pioneer in the introduction of telephone service to rail transport.