Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov (19.07.1761 - 3.08.1834) was a Russian physicist and electrical engineer and an academician (1815; corresponding member 1802). He was born in the town of Oboyan (now Kursk Region). He graduated from the Kharkov Collegium (1785). From 1791 he taught in St Petersburg, and in 1795—1833 he was professor at the Medico-Surgical Academy, where he organised a physics cabinet that was a model for its time and became an important centre of Russian physics (in 1810—27 he also headed the physics cabinet of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences).
His physical research was mainly in the study of electrical phenomena. In 1802 he constructed a large galvanic battery consisting of 2100 copper-zinc cells with an electromotive force of about 1700 V. He studied the properties of this battery as a source of current and showed that its action rests on chemical processes between the metals and the electrolyte. He carried out a number of experiments with this battery. In particular, in 1802 he discovered the electric arc (8 years before H. Davy) and showed that it could be used for melting and refining metals and for lighting.
He detected the dependence of the strength of a current on the cross-sectional area of the conductor. He studied the electrolytic action of an electric current and the phenomenon of electrolysis, and the electrical conductivity of various substances, established the importance of electrical insulation and used a covering of the metal conductor with an insulating layer. He studied the electric discharge in a vacuum and found its dependence on the material, shape and polarity of the electrodes, the distance between them and the degree of rarefaction. He made a thorough study of the electrification of bodies, showed that metals can be electrified by friction, and proposed new ways of electrifying bodies. He developed original designs of electrostatic machines and instruments. He described his research in this field in the works “Report on Galvano-Voltaic Studies” (1803) and “New Electrical Experiments” (1804). His work also concerned physico-chemical phenomena, the effects of the cold luminescence of bodies, meteorology and hydraulic engineering. He was an active supporter of the oxygen theory of combustion. He was the first of the Russian physicists to carry out pioneering research in luminescence; he studied the phenomena of chemiluminescence, bioluminescence and photoluminescence and established the difference between them.