Talk:Ignacy Łukasiewicz

Kerosene Lamp
I'm not certain how Ignacy Łukasiewicz can be said to have invented the kerosene lamp in 1853, as Abraham Gesner founded his Kerosene Gaslight Company in 1850 and installed kerosene lights on the streets of Halifax, Nova Scotia that year. Perhaps Łukasiewicz invented an improvement on the kerosene lamp (wick lamp?) - any ideas? Geoff NoNick 18:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess the difference is that what Gesner called a kerosene was in fact a coal oil, while Łukasiewicz's invention was a proper petroleum-made kerosene, much like the one we use today. There also might be a problem in terminology: in Polish nobody would call a coal oil kerosene, as the term (nafta in Polish) is reserved for oil products (much like in modern English). And the first man to use such fuel in America was, AFAIK, James Miller Williams, some half a decade after Łukasiewicz.  // Halibutt 20:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that the hydrocarbon chains that Gesner distilled from coal/shale/albertite/etc are identical to those obtained from the low-temperature distillation of oil. Gesner used (and invented) the term kerosene to describe what he refined, though the term coal oil stuck for what is in effect an identical product to that obtained from crude oil and commonly called kerosene.  I suspect that the lamp Gesner used was a very simple wick and oil lamp (similar to those used for centuries to burn whale oil), but that Łukasiewicz somehow improved the product for kerosene applications.  Does anyone have any background in this field? Geoff NoNick 21:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

World's First refinery?
The citation I added has just been removed. According to Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia By Alison Fleig Frank, page 58, top paragraph, it states: "Lukasiewicz quickly realized that the real profit lay in refining oil and worked with Moritz Baron Brunicki and Eugen Zielinski to build a refinery in Kleczany. After leasing a pharmacy in Gorlice, through which he hoped to make his living, he built a refinery in Gorlice in 1854 and subsequently built refineries in Jaslo, Polanka, and Ulaszowice."

In previous pages the book states that a primitive refinery was heard of before that but it was not located or known who really started it. It is my understanding that Lukasiewicz built the first COMMERCIAL oil refinery in the world which produced kerosene for material building before the lamp became popular. As for his earlier refineries they were small and nobody seems to know exactly where they were all located. From what I've read it seems that they were all in the Krosno-Jaslo area which is relatively small.

Based on what this book says Kleczany should be the first refinery preceding any other existing refinery in the world by at least two years. The University of Warsaw however says Ulaszowice was the first in 1956. If anyone has any more detailed information I'd appreciate it if it was discussed here. JRWalko 15:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Armenian descent?
some pages are telling he got Armenian roots. is that true? i cant find any sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkraid1 (talk • contribs) 17:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Lots of sources support this and used to be here but were removed by someone, I restored them and added another. --Steverci (talk) 20:29, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

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Nationality, Regional Names and Ethnicity
Ignacy Łukasiewicz was born in the political/national entity known as the Austrian Empire, specifically in the crown lands known as the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. These later became crown lands of the Austro-Hungarian empire after the außgleich in 1867. This should be reflected in the synopsis, since 'Austrian Poland' is an invented name which never actually existed.

I would also suggest that since the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian empires were multi-ethnic, that the word 'ethnic Polish' replace Polish, since the nation of Poland did not exist during his lifetime and therefore he could not have had said nationality. He was a citizen of a kingdom within an empire and therefore arguably his nationality, like that of all other ethnicities, was austro-hungarian whereas his ethnicity was definitively Polish.

Also the partitions which annexed these regions in the Austrian Empire were of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, not of 'Poland' per se which only came into existence during the war of independence after ww1.Tempsperdue (talk) 19:54, 19 September 2018 (UTC)


 * The term ethnic Polish is not necessary. The partitions of Poland didn't affect nationality. Łukasiewicz spoke Polish on a daily basis, as did around 10% of the total population of Austria-Hungary. Oliszydlowski, 09:31, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Kerosene lamp
Can anyone, ideally with some Polish, please help improve the sourcing for Łukasiewicz at Kerosene lamp. Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion - Mikolasch
A pic of "Mikolasch's Gold Star Pharmacy" is in the Political section but Mikolasch is actually only discussed in the following section; moreover, the nearby text doesn't make clear the relevance of the depicted pharmacy. Al Begamut (talk) 23:00, 28 December 2023 (UTC)