page_title: Arturo Salazar Valencia
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Arturo Salazar Valencia / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Español: Busto de Arturo Salazar inaugurado en 1955 en la Central Hidroeléctrica de Cipreses, cerca de Talca, Chile
context_page_description: Arturo Edmundo Salazar Valencia was a scientist, researcher, innovator and professor of electrical engineering in Chile, who in his role as a self-taught individual, explored a wide variety of fields of interest and is considered a true pioneer in the technological development of his country.
context_section_description: The son of Ramón Salazar Inostroza and Juana Valencia Ureta, he was born in the mining community of Andacollo, where his father was a military engineer. This individual was a man well ahead of his time, capable of conceiving and presenting in 1861 a project for the construction of a sizable dike or breakwater for the port of Valparaíso, which entailed the dredging of the estuary of Viña del Mar.
  Arturo Salazar lost his father at the age of fifteen, but his vocation was already formed, as he served as an assistant in physics in the school run by the French priests in Valparaíso, collaborating with the renowned Frenchman, Fidel Dilley, who helped him take his firststeps.
  During his stay in Valparaíso, between 1883 and 1884, he was a physics professor at the Naval Academy, fulfilling this way his pedagogical vocation, while he served at and made his living as the general manager of the Valparaíso Gas Company.
  During this period he meets and begins his collaboration with Carlos Newman Andonaegui, a chemistry professor and colleague at the Naval Academy, on a series of publications dealing with topics of national scientific research on matters of daily quality of life, particularly in relation to public health, which would earn him greater prestige both nationally as well as certain recognition abroad.
  But Salazar cultivated other interests beyond those of his specialty, shared with scientists and humanists around the world, exchanging correspondence with philosopher Herbert Spencer, the writer Miguel de Unamuno, and the well known philologist Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, and studying topics as diverse as the death penalty, the relationship between science and religion, and the topic of rational orthography, which he personally used in numerous publications as well as his personal correspondence.
  In 1896, at age forty, already renowned as a scientist, teacher and individual of great intellectual curiosity, Salazar relocates to Santiago. He had a study tour of Europe in 1889 under his belt, and was seeking new horizons.
  Salazar was the initiator of the modern study of Electrical Engineering (known as Electrotechnology during his time) at the Engineering School of the University of Chile, in which he served as chair of Industrial Physics and Electrotechnology for 27 years (1898-1925). During this extended career he stressed the importance of experimental work and laboratories, as well as scientific research being at the core of a modern university.
  A portrait of his is kept in the professor's lounge at the School of Engineering of the Physical Sciences and Mathematics Faculty of the University of Chile.
  He continued to be a multifaceted scientist:  his interest in energy issues led him to propose a visionary project to develop a nationwide, interconnected electrical grid, taking advantage of the great quantity of waterfalls that the mountains provide, without the need for large dams. This vision started to be developed and continues to this day. In recognition of his contributions towards the hydroelectric power development at a national level, ENDESA [the state energy corporation at the time] dedicated a bust of his at the Cipreses hydroelectric power plant, near Talca, in 1955. On the dedication placard he is recognized as "Forerunner of the electrification of the nation".
  In 1902 he married Hortensia Justiniano Maturana, and of their children three survived: Hortensia (Kitty), Eugenio and Renato. Following their father's steps, both sons became engineers specializing in the area of electrical power development. Salazar had three sisters:  Clementina, Rosa Elvira and Fortunata, of which only the latter outlived him.
  Once retired and devoting his days to his family and frequent trips to their country home in Las Hijuelas, Arturo Salazar died in Santiago on April 3, 1943.
caption: Bust of A. E. Salazar at Cipreses power plant, 1955
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2047", "Image ImageLength": "3088", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:04:07 21:40:34", "Image ExifOffset": "2258", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:03:30 22:32:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:03:30 22:32:27", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1718", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}