Commemorative Plaque to František Nušl in Jindřichův Hradec

2018 

The memorial plaque of František Nušl (1867-1951) commemorates the place where this important astronomer from Jindřichův Hradec spent his childhood and youth. His further life journey was closely connected with the University of Prague and with the Ondřejov Observatory. The ground-breaking astronomical instrument, the circumzenithal astrolabe, invented by František Nušl together with Josef Jan Frič, was installed here.

 

František Nušl was passionate about astronomy already in his student years, when he attended high school in Jindřichův Hradec. He built his own telescope in order to carry out his private astronomical observations. In 1882 he was able to observe the transit of Venus in front of the Sun with it. Nušl`s interest in astronomy naturally developed into an interest in mathematics, which he studied together with physics at the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague from 1888. Among his professors were the mathematician František Josef Studnička and the experimental physicist Vincenc Strouhal, but Nušl was most influenced by the astronomer August Seydler, with whom he began working at the astronomical institute in Bubeneč in Prague. After finishing university, Nušl worked as a teacher of mathematics and physics, and he also popularized science in his many lectures and publications. For example, he researched intensively the life and work of Prokop Diviš (in 1899 he published his biography and a translation of his work Magia Naturalis). In the following years František Nušl established a very fruitful cooperation with Josef Jan Frič, who founded the Ondřejov Observatory where the first provisional observation with a circumzenithal astrolabe was carried out in 1901-1902. This remarkable astronomical optical instrument made it possible to observe the moment of a star`s passage through any point on a circle centred on the zenith, and also to determine its position on the Earth`s surface with considerable accuracy. In 1903, Nušl and Frič published a joint paper on this device under the title Study on the Circumzenithal Astrolabe and they further improved it in the following years. Later, Nušl wrote on the subject of refractive anomalies and geometrical optics. In 1905 he was habilitated for practical astronomy and geometrical optics, and in 1908 he became professor of mathematics at the Czech Technical University. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, František Nušl was appointed administrator of the State Observatory and became its director in 1924. In 1926 he was appointed professor of astronomy at the Faculty of Science of Charles University. In 1937, Nušl and Frič were awarded a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris for their construction of the circumzenithal astrolabe. František Nušl died in Prague in 1951. A dwarf planet was named Nušl in his memory (3424).

 

The commemorative plaque to František Nušl, commissioned by the Czech Astronomical Society, was unveiled in Jindřichův Hradec on 24 November 2018 as part of a specialised astronomy seminar commemorating the 151st birthday of this important astronomer.

 

References

Petr, K.: František Nušl. Stručný životopisný náčrtek k jeho šedesátým narozeninám. In: Časopis pro pěstování matematiky a fyziky, 2/1928, s. 73–80.

Internetové zdroje:

Bartoš, P.: Život a dílo Františka Nušla. In: Česká astronomická společnost. Astronomický informační server astro.cz. URL: https://www.astro.cz/clanky/osobnosti/zakladatele-cas-frantiska-nusla-ucti-specialni-seminar-v-jindrichove-hradci.html?hledat=Franti%C5%A1ek%20Nu%C5%A1l [1.9.2021].

Kovář, Š.: František Nušl – 151. In: Česká astronomická společnost. Astronomický informační server astro.cz. URL: https://www.astro.cz/clanky/osobnosti/frantisek-nusl-151.html?hledat=Franti%C5%A1ek%20Nu%C5%A1l [1.9.2021].

 

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