Jozef Maximilián Petzval

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Template:Cleanup-date Template:Cleanup-english Image:Joseph Petzval.jpg Jozef Maximilián Petzval (German: Josef Maximilian Petzval; Hungarian: Petzval József (or Józeph) Miksa), (born January 6, 1807 in Spišská Belá, Slovakia - died September 19, 1891 in Vienna) was a famous Slovak mathematician, inventor and physicist best known for his work in optics. Petzval studied and later lectured at the Institutum Geometricum (currently Budapest University of Technology and Economics) in Buda (part of the later Budapest). He headed the Institute of Practical Geometry and Hydrology/Architecture between 1841 and 1848. Later in life, he accepted the appointment to the chair of mathematics at the University of Vienna.

Petzval is considered to be one the founders of geometrical optics, modern photography and cinematography. Among his inventions are the Petzval portrait lens and opera glasses, both still in common use today. He is also credited with the discovery of the Laplace transform and is also known for his extensive work on aberration in optical systems.

1 Ethnic origin
2 Life
3 Private life and hobbies
4 Disputes
5 Discoveries and inventions
6 Sources

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Ethnic origin

Petzval was born in Komitat Zips in present-day Slovakia, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, which in turn was part of the Austrian monarchy. His native language was Slovak, although his family seems to have been strongly influenced by the predominantly German population in their native Zips. He spent his youth in Slovakia and moved to present-day Hungary upon completion of his secondary education. He spent the remaining 53 years of his life in Vienna, which is one of the reasons why the majority of his work was printed in German.

His father, Ján Fridrich Peczival (Petzval) (1775?-1852) was either of Slovak or Czech origin. He was probably the same person as Ján Krtitel Pecival, who was born on July 4, 1775 in Lodenice, Moravia (the present-day Czech Republic). Petzval's father successfully applied for a teaching position at the evangelist school in Spišská Belá. In 1801 he married Zuzana Kreutzmann, the daughter of the previous teacher at the same school in Spišská Belá. She was born in Spišská Belá and was most likely of Slovak ethnicity. The couple brought up six children: Gustáv Adolf (1800 - 1803), who died prematurely; Nestor Aemilianus (1804 - 1806); Jozef Maximilián; Petrol Baltazár (1809-1889); and three daughters. In 1810, the family moved to Kežmarok and in 1819 to Levoca.

Jozef's entire family shared an aptitude for technology. His father worked as a teacher and organist in Spišká Belá and later in Kežmarok. He was a kapellmeister and urban geo meter in Levoča. He had a reputation as an outstanding musician and composer, who was also gifted mechanically. In 1824 he was awarded two patents - one for improvements to the pendulum clock and the other for a "polygraph" (typewriter). Jozef's brother, Petrol Baltazár Petzval, was a well-respected mathematician, engineer and astronomer.

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Life

Petzval attended elementary school in Kežmarok, and began his secondary school studies in Kežmarok and Podolínec. On October 1, 1819, he returned to his family in Levoca, where he attended high school. Both in elementary school and high school he ranked among the best in his class in the subjects of Latin (the learned language of the Kingdom of Hungary) and religion; however, he had problems with his Hungarian. Before arriving in Levoca, he was, interestingly enough, also very weak in mathematics. During the course of his studies in Levoca however, his achievements in mathematics clearly improved.

One anecdote told about Petzval is as follows: When his family had already decided to make a shoemaker out of Jozef, he read the book Analytic Paper on the Elements of Mathematics by the German mathematician Hauser over the summer holidays, just after completing his fourth class in elementary school. He was preparing to undergo a repeat class in mathematics. After Petzval finished the book, the child who had been a weak math pupil swiftly became a math genius.

After finishing his high school studies, Petzval decided to take further courses of study at the Institutum Geometricum, the engineering faculty of the Pester University. However, first he had to complete a two-year Lyceum, which he attended from 1823 to 1825 in Košice. When he arrived in Košice in 1823, Petzval was already well-versed in the subjects of Latin, mathematical analysis, classical literature and Stilistik, and spoke perfect Czech, German and Hungarian in addition to Slovak and Latin. (With his father's assistance, he also learned French and English.)

After completing the Lyceum, Petzval worked for a year as an educator for Count Almássy in the Heves Komitat. In addition to bringing in some urgently-needed money, this experience also provided him with important social contacts.

From 1826 to 1828, Petzval studied at the Institutum Geometricum in Prague, where he received an engineering diploma in 1828. In the same year, he joined the graduate degree program of the university, and in 1831 became the self-appointed adjunct chair for the Physics Department. From 1828 to 1835, Petzval simultaneously worked as an urban engineer for the city of Prague (particularly as a specialist in flood abatement and sewers) and studied mathematics, mechanics and practical geometry. He was an author of an unconverted draft of a navigation channel, which should go around Prague. In 1830, his dam computations saved Prague from an inundation caused by the flooding of the Danube. After he received his Ph.D. in 1832, he taught as an associate professor in the university at Budapest. During this time, he also received a degree in mathematics. In 1835 he was appointed the university professor for higher mathematics.

After being invited to the Viennese university in 1836, he accepted a chair for mathematics there in 1837, and worked until 1877 as a tidy professor for mathematics. Apart from mathematics, he was also concerned with mechanics, ballistics, optics and acoustics. His lectures on the theory of algebraic equations, which integrated linear and differential equations with constant and variable coefficients, ballistics, acoustic theory and other areas, were high quality and became well attended.

He drew into a rented abandoned monastery at Bald Mountain (some sources say only after 1859). There he had his own glass-sharpening workshop, in which he produced lenses which soon became world famous. He was a skillful sharpener and precision mechanic.

1840 he discovered his famous haven guessing lens (see further below). 1845 began its disputes with the entrepreneur Peter Wilhelm Friedrich of Voigtlaender (1812-1878, see further below), about who should manufacture Petzval's lenses. In 1859 Petzval's home was broken into, and his manuscripts and many years of optical research were destroyed. The disappointed Petzval never succeeded in reconstructing the documents. His more refined technical book on optics, lost with his manuscripts, would never appear in print. From then on he primarily concerned himself with acoustics and began to withdraw from society. His enterprise with Carl Dietzler failed in 1862 (see further below); Dietzler died in 1872.

In 1869, at the age of 62, Petzval married his lady housekeeper, but she died four years later. In 1877 he stopped lecturing, withdrew to the monastery at Bald Mountain and became a hermit.

Jozef Maximilián Petzval died in 1891, nearly forgotten, embittered and poor, in Vienna. His grave is in the Viennese central cemetery. His bitterness at the end of his life can probably be traced, on the one hand, to his continuing controversy with Voigtlaender, the loss of his manuscripts and his business failure; and on the other hand, to the fact that he was never really acknowledged for his lifelong work in the field of optics. Just before his death, Petzval is famously reported to have said:

"I defeated the light, I have it firmly in hand, because there is much darkness in the world too."

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Private life and hobbies

Petzval was a good sportsman and rider. As a young child in Slovakia he often traveled with his family into the high Tatra, and was also a dedicated athlete. In Vienna, he was for a long time the best fechter and ring fighter in the city. He also inherited an excellent talent for music from his father. Allegedly, while he was a lecturer in Vienna, he always rode to his lectures on a black Arabian horse.

Petzval never wanted to communicate anything about his private life, and was therefore relatively inscrutable to others during his lifetime. As Dr. Ermenyi describes in his book, Dr. Josef Petzval's Life:

". . . he went so far as to always insert a bare point for example use the appearing annual yearbook of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, in whatever apart from the names of the members the date and the place appear aforementioned to the birth for itself into this column."

In addition it had a slope to the zurueckgezogenheit. At the end of his life he lived in increasingly greater isolation in "his castle" on Bald Mountain, with only his horse for company, although several academies and scholarly societies appointed him a member (member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna (1846/1849), external member of the Hungarian one Academy of Sciences (1873), honour member of the union of the Czech mathematicians and physicists (1881), carriers of the French Charles Chevalier Platinmedaille etc.).

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Disputes

Petzval placed very high requirements - both actually even and against others. That was probably connected with its critical, contentious nature, which brought him many conflicts, particularly in mathematics.

Petzval had among other things a controversy with Christian Doppler over problems of acoustics (Doppler, Christian: Remarks over the objections stated by the Mr. Professor Petzval against the correctness of my theory. Vienna, brewing Mueller 1852).

In particular he was involved in lengthy disputes with the entrepreneur Voigtlaender. These began in 1845, when Petzval raised the issue of fraud for the first time. Thereupon Voigtlaender shifted his production to Braunschweig in Germany, where he produced about 60,000 Petzval lenses in the following 20 years. Petzval for his part co-operated since 1854 with the Austrian optics producer Dietzler, so that the Petzval lenses were produced both in Austria by von Dietzler, and in Germany (also for Austria) by Voigtlaender. 1857 besides by Dietzler under the designation "photographic Dialyt" was sold to Petzvals landscape objective, while it sold Voigtlaender as the "Voightlaender Orthoskop". To further machinations Voigtlaenders went however to Dietzler 1862 broke and to threats on the part of Petzvals placed Voigtlaender 1866 all its enterprises into Austria. After this miss, Petzval actually should have transferred the marketing, after the break-down to its house in the year 1859 it however never more with the optics concerned and dedicated themselves from now on to the acoustics. In 1862, he also stopped his lectures on optics.

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Discoveries and inventions

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Optics

its largest successes reached he in the area of the geometrical optics. On 19 August 1839 Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre presented the Daguerreotypie (the first form of a durable photography) into of Paris its invention. After its return from Paris inform Petzvals colleague and friend, which Viennese professor Andreas of Ettingshausen, Petzval over the at that time large problem the Daguerrotypie, same that the exposure time with the Portraetierung up to 30 minute last. On urge of Ettingshausen Petzval furnished itself a workshop and a laboratory to bald mountain in Vienna and sketched 1840 after six months of complicated computations a vierlinsiges haven guessing objective as well as a vierlinsiges landscape objective (both objectives the Petzval lens are usually called). For the computations to it by ore duke Ludwig (commander in chief of the artillery) 8 artillery Kanoniere and 3 Korporale were provided to the order, since the artillery belonged at that time to the few occupations, with which one mathematical computations made. Petzvals world-wide first haven guessing objective (Petzval Portraetobjektiv) was an almost distortionless anachromatischer Vierlinser (double achromatic objective, 4 lenses in 3 groups). The luminous intensity of this flat "haven guessing lens" was substantially higher than those of the up to then common Daguerre objective of 1839, which sucked. Wollaston Chevalier Linse(F=1:16). The screen F=1:3,6 with a focal length of 160mm made crucially shorter exposure times possible - depending upon lighting conditions only about 15-30 second in relation to before several 10 minutes. Thus for the first time snapshots became possible! The haven guessing lens consisted of a cemented double lens in front (F=1:5) and a double lens with gap in the back. The rear double lens was necessary for the correction of the spherical error and the coma error. The Chevalier lens used two cemented double lenses, however by the Petzval lens was immediately replaced, so that the Petzval Portraetlinse used also first generally cemented lens was. The first haven guessing lenses were rather small and had a diameter of 2,6 cm. The optiker Dietzler produced then however since 1856 Petzval lenses with 15 cm diameters and a weight of 15kg, with which one could make Portraets of 33x42 cm. Still in the same year (1840) Petzval left its haven guessing objective to the Viennese entrepreneur Peter Wilhelm Friedrich of Voigtlaender against a ridiculous unique payment of 2000 guldens, without patenting and without contract, which led later to a durable controversy between Petzval and Voigtlaender (see above). Voigtlaender, which added also a pair computations, built the objectives since 1841 (prototype in May 1840) into the Daguerrotypie cameras produced by it and earned thereby a fortune. The round Daguerreotypie plates concerned of 8 cm diameters exposed a tube camera out of brass, (it is the golden-colored equipment on [1]). 1841 were built this camera in a number of items of 600, and sold at a price by 120 guldens. Voigtlaender received medal on the world exhibition in Paris for this objective. These world-wide first cameras made of metal were prototypes of the today's modern cameras. It took further about 50 years to a better objective on the market came. Petzvals haven guessing objective was used into the 1920er (often under other names) in cameras and is used also today still in projectors. The objective played an important role with the development of the photography and Kinematografie. With its landscape objective with four lenses, which was characterised particularly by its high luminous intensity (Orthoskop), was Petzval however dissatisfied and after improvements left it 1857 to produce and patent. The camera with the new landscape objective, produced by Dietzler, possessed a light fold upable chamber with double bellows. In addition, of this objective Petzval had never a commercial profit. Among its further inventions in particular the invention of the opernglases, computations for efficient field glasses and construction of new headlights rank perfecting the telescope and the microscope (computation of appropriate lens systems, 1843) (1847). Its plan for the construction from lighting systems to the lighting of ships on the Danube could not be carried out. Its special mirror lamp (Petzval lamp), which a maximum utilization of light energy made possible, particularly for the bright projectors developed by it one used. Due to in its deduction found recording one must regard it also as the inventor of the modern anastigmatischen lens system. Around 1860 it accomplished photogrammetric measurements with one of him designed equipment. Besides it proved scientifically that radiate glowing firm body more light than burning gases. This principle used late Carl baron Auer von Welsbach with the gas lamp designated after it. Petzvals of objectives become today still particularly in the cinematography, in which astronomy uses and in the measuring technique. In the astronomy was above all the astro+ Petzval objective of importance. This objective made a distortion-free illustration of a large part of the sky, as well as a photographing of galaxies and star fields possible. German optics companies (toepfer, Voigtlaender, Zeiss) produced the astro+ Petzval objective into the 1940er year. The largest contribution Petzvals are however the theoretical bases for the construction and correction of optical lens systems. It carried fundamental work out for the theory of the aberrations of optical systems. Some central terms of this field after it were designated later: * The Petzval surface is the generally curved image plane of a unkorrigierten optical system, a Rotationsparaboloid. * In the case of adherence to the Petzval condition the Petzval surface is even. Of it more-restrains work prepared over the optics for the largest regret of all physicists never appeared.

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Mathematics

In mathematics, Petzval always stressed practical applicability. He said, "Mankind does not exist for science's sake, but science should be operated to improve the conditions of mankind." He worked among other things on applications of the Laplace transformation. Actually it should be called the Petzval transformation, designated after Petzval, who was the first to study it and its applications in usual linear differential equations systematically. His work was very thorough, but not completely satisfying, since he could not use an edge integration in order to invert the transformation. Petzval wrote a paper in two volumes as well as a long work on this subject. A controversy with a student (Simon syringe), who Petzval to injustice of the plagiarism of Pierre Simon de Laplace accused, led however to the fact that the mathematicians George Boole and Jules Henri Poincaré certainly affected by splash designated the transformation later after Laplace. Petzval tried to represent practically everything in his environment mathematically. Thus it tried to solve also a fencing or the course of the horse mathematically. His obsession with mathematics finally led to the discovery of the haven guessing objective.

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Acoustics

In the study of acoustics, Petzval was particularly concerned with string oscillations, differential equations of the string oscillations, and mathematical theory of musical instruments. He also designed a piano with three key sequences. Petzval set up a theory for oscillations of strained strings as well as his own theory of the clay/tone systems. [work on] after it designated objects in its birth house the Jozef Maximilián Petzval museum of the history of the photo and Kinematografie since 1964 (part of the Slowaki technical museum in Košice) is. A crater on the drawback of the moon (150 km in diameter, 63° in width, 113° in length), as well as roads and statues in modern Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, carry Petzval's name. 1980 were designated upon the request of the astronomical institute in Tatranská Lomnica also a planetoid discovered in Tschechien after it (3716 Petzval, 1980 TG), there Petzvals haven guessing objective at the end of the 19th Century the discovery of many planetoiden made possible. The Austrian Board of Education has bestowed the Petzval Medal for special achievements in the area of scientific photography since 1928.

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