František Nušl
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František Nušl (; 3 December 1867, in
Jindřichův Hradec Jindřichův Hradec (; ) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 21,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument reservations, urb ...
– 17 September 1951, in
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
) was a
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...
astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
and
mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
.


Life

After high school in Jindřichův Hradec, he studied physics and astronomy in Prague, where he met among others the future president of Czechoslovakia, T. G. Masaryk, the linguist
Jan Gebauer Jan Gebauer (8 October 1838 in Úbislavice – 25 May 1907 in Prague) was a significant expert on Czech studies and one of the most renowned Czech scientists of all times. His scientific work was influenced by the methods of positivism. Biograph ...
and the historian Josef Goll, with whom he collaborated on Otto's encyclopedia. After 1893 he taught maths on various high schools and met with J. J. Frič, a manufacturer of precision instruments. In 1898 Frič bought a large piece of land in Ondřejov, 50 km south-east from Prague, where they established an astronomical observatory. Since 1904 Nušl was assistant professor of astronomy at the
Charles University of Prague Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest universities in the world in continuous operation, the oldest university north of the ...
and after 1908 professor of mathematics at the
Czech Technical University in Prague Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) () is one of the largest universities in the Czech Republic with 8 faculties, and is one of the oldest institutes of technology in Central Europe. It is also the oldest non-military technical universi ...
(ČVUT). In 1917, Nušl was among the founders of the
Czech Astronomical Society Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surname) ...
, whose president he was to become later. In 1928 Frič dedicated the well-equipped
Ondřejov Observatory The Ondřejov Observatory (; ) is the principal observatory of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It is located in the municipality of Ondřejov, southeast of Prague, Czech Republic. It has a wide telescope, which i ...
to the Charles university and to the Czechoslovak state and Nušl became its first head. He was a member and temporarily vice-chairman of the
International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...
and participated in establishing the popular
Štefánik's Observatory Štefánik's Observatory (, obs. code: 541) is an astronomical observatory on Petřín hill in the center of Prague founded 1928 and named after Slovak astronomer Milan Rastislav Štefánik. Nowadays the observatory specializes above all in po ...
on the
Petřín Petřín () is a hill in the centre of Prague, Czech Republic. It rises 327 m above sea level and some 130 m above the left bank of the Vltava River. The hill, almost entirely covered with parks, is a favorite recreational area for the inhabit ...
hill in Prague. Nušl was a gifted musician, he played viola and was member of a Prague chorus. He was married and had three children.


Work

Nušl was a very gifted experimenter, particularly interested in
geometrical optics Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light Wave propagation, propagation in terms of ''ray (optics), rays''. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstract object, abstraction useful for approximating the paths along ...
and in geodetical instruments. His circumzenithal, jointly developed with Frič, was an ingenious portable instrument used to precisely determine geodetical coordinates. The method was based on the properties of mercury horizon and allowed to establish local coordinates with an error about 10 m, surpassed only much later by satellite navigation. To reduce the error caused by the observer, Nušl developed an "impersonal micrometer": instead of pushing a button in the moment of the passage of a star, the observer set up the instrument to follow exactly the movement of the star and the moment of the passage has been signalled automatically.


Awards and honors

* Since 1999, the ''František Nušl Award'' has been given by the Czech Astronomical Society as a lifetime achievement award. *
Asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...
3424 Nušl 34 may refer to: * 34 (number) * 34 BC * AD 34 * 1934 * 2034 Science * Selenium, a nonmetal in the periodic table * 34 Circe, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music * ''34'' (album), a 2015 album by Dre Murray * "#34" (song), a 1994 song by ...
was named for him. * The crater Nušl on the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
is named after him. * The astronomical observatory in his native town Jindřichův Hradec bears his name.


References

* P. Hadrava (Ed.): ''Ondřejovská hvězdárna 1898–1998''. Praha 1998.


External links


Česká astronomická společnost – František Nušl Award
(in Czech)
František Nušl observatory in Jindřichův Hradec
(in Czech)

(
Masaryk university Masaryk University (MU) (; ) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno, it now consists of ten faculties and 35,115 students. It is named after To ...
) (in Czech) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nusl, Frantisek 1867 births 1951 deaths Astronomers from Bohemia Czech astronomers Charles University alumni Astronomers from Austria-Hungary People from Jindřichův Hradec