Antonín Strnad

10.8.1746 – 23.8.1799 

Antonín Strnad, a prominent meteorologist, astronomer and mathematician, worked at the Clementinum Observatory in Prague. Together with his teacher Joseph Stepling, he is the founder of the tradition of meteorological measurements on the Czech territory. He was a professor at Charles-Ferdinand University, author of mathematical and astronomical writings, dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and eventually also rector of the university. He also became one of the founding members and later chairman of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences.

 

Antonín Strnad was born in Náchod in 1746. He was first educated in the Jesuit order in several places in Bohemia and Moravia, but when the Jesuit order was finally abolished in 1773, he had to look for another life path without priestly ordination. He decided to study at Charles-Ferdinand University and there he began to study mathematics, physics and astronomy, which he had already studied as a member of the Jesuit order. At the university he became a student and later an assistant of the eminent mathematician and meteorologist Joseph Stepling and began to help him at the meteorological and astronomical observatory in Clementinum. When his teacher died a few years later, Strnad was appointed professor and in 1781 also director of the Clementinum Observatory. He continuously measured the meteorological conditions and together with Stepling established the oldest tradition of weather measurements in Central Europe, which has been carried out in the same place since 1752. In addition to his work in Clementinum, Strnad also established stations in other parts of Bohemia and cooperated with stations abroad. Thanks to his efforts, the Bohemian lands were among the meteorological superpowers and data from our territory form an important part of the history of climate monitoring. He also devoted himself to his work at the University, where he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts in 1792 and Rector in 1795. He published works on astronomy and mathematics for his students, but also popular writings for the general public, he wrote meteorological manuals and agricultural calendars for farmers. Together with Ignác Born, he was one of the founding members of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences, which he also chaired at one time. In addition to his scientific and pedagogical career, Antonín Strnad is also known among art historians - in 1781 he managed to promote and organise the costly reconstruction of the Prague astronomical clock.

 

References

NOVOTNÁ, E.; KALVODA, J.: The first professor of physical geogprahy at Charles university in Prague. AUC Geographica 48, 2013, č. 1, str. 41–46.

 

MUNZAR, J.: Antonín Strnad (1746–1799), průkopník české meteorologie. Meteorologické zprávy: časopis pro odbornou veřejnost, 49/1996, s. 161–166.

 

ŠOLCOVÁ, A.: Život a zásluhy matematika, astronoma a meteorologa Antonína Strnada (1746–1799). Náchod 1999

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