Joseph Petzval (January 6, 1807 - September 19, 1891) was a mathematician, inventor, and physicist best known for his work in optics. He was born in the town of Zipser Bela in the Kingdom of Hungary (modern day Slovakia).
Petzval studied and later lectured at the Institutum Geometricum (currently Budapest University of Technology and Economics) in Buda (today part of Budapest). He headed the Institute of Practical Geometry and Hydrology/Architecture between 1841 and 1848. Later in life, he accepted an appointment to a chair of mathematics at the University of Vienna. Petzval became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1873.
Petzval is considered to be one of the main 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.
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Last edited by Guest on Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
Yes, Joseph Petzval was an unsung genius. He doesn't receive nearly as much credit as he deserves. Did you know his lenses were color-corrected? That means that light from both the visible and the invisible ends of the spectrum converge at similar focal lengths when they pass through a Petzval lens--amazing! I like to brag that we Americans were the world's best daguerreotypists, but none of this would have been possible without Petzval's lens.
Here's another New York-manufactured Ptezval lens, circa 1857...
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I have an interest in things pertaining Hungary/Hungarians...
I knew Petzval József as a H. scientist, especially by Laplace transform he took part its discovery in - as part of his obsession with mathematics.
by the way
The Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Acta technica, Volume 25, 1959 notes a dispute over the ethnicity of Petzval. According to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences:
"The Austrians declared Petzval to having been an Austrian, the Czechs tried to prove his Bohemian origin, the Slovaks claiming to the fact that the County of Szepes, where Petzval was born, is now in Slovakia, so he must have been a Slovak." —Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The same publication also cites Petzval's expressed claim to being Hungarian and a "...loyal son of the fatherland"
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
