Franz Josef Gerstner is an example of a craftsman’s son who, thanks to his talents, rose to become one of the most fundamental thinkers of his age. In the rural single-class school he attended as a boy he apparently noticed and called attention to a mistake in his teacher’s calculations and was permanently banned from arithmetic classes. This would certainly have been an enviable punishment for his classmates, but it proved to be fateful for the young lad, as because of this incident his father sent him to be tutored by the local vicar, who prepared Franz Josef to study in Prague. There, he earned some extra money by playing the organ and tutoring inmates of St. Bartholomew’s monastery. His teachers in Prague were Jesuit mathematicians and astronomers such as Jan Tesánek, Josef Stepling and Stanislav Vydra. After completing his studies F. J. Gerstner worked as a surveyor. Back then, following the abolition of the corvée, the lands had to be divided up, areas measured and new tax levies calculated. Gerstner’s systematic and precise way of thinking made him ideal for such work and his methods eventually became defining for the whole of the monarchy. When that contract was completed, Gerstner wanted to go on to study medicine in Vienna, but there he met the astronomer Maximilian Helle, who guided him towards an astronomical career and recommended him to the famous meteorologist and astronomer Antonín Strnad as an assistant at the Clementinum in Prague. During his work there he became renowned for perfecting the method used to calculate geographic coordinates derived from calculations based on measurements taken during solar eclipses. He was offered membership of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences, which placed him amongst the scientific elite of the time. He was also one of the participants on the famous expedition to the Krkonoše Mountains. There, he tried out his own handmade barometer to measure the height of Sněžka (his measurement diverged from the modern one by some 20 m, but even so, for its time this method was very precise and the barometer itself was accurate to the hundredth of a thousandth of a metre). He later used this instrument to measure heights, when he was commissioned to draw up plans for a shipping canal connecting the Danube and the Vltava to simplify transport along the salt trade route. (The plan to connect the Danube and the Vltava had originated during the time of Charles IV; Albrecht von Wallenstein later promised to fund and build this grand project. Somewhat later the famous Schwarzenberg Canal in Šumava was also to form part of the scheme.) However, after detailed surveys of the terrain, instead of this Gerstner designed and produced calculations to prove that a horse-drawn railway built according to the English model of the time would be suitable. This was eventually implemented, albeit after having been delayed for a decade, and cut the travel time down to a 14-hour journey, including changing the horses.
However, Gerstner’s career eventually took an unexpected direction. His former professor Tesánek fell ill and Gerstner began to look after him and his students and held Tesánek’s classes in the sick man’s apartment. Gerstner suffered from a stammer and did not enjoy speaking in public, yet even so he embarked on a career as a teacher. In the end he was appointed professor of mathematics and in 1806 became the founder and teacher at the first technical university in the realm. From his engineering studies, the main subject of which was building fortifications (as well as attacking them), he ended up teaching mathematics, physics and technical subjects intended as a response to industrial and scientific advancement. One thing that has been somewhat forgotten is Gerstner’s attempt in 1806–1807 to design the first steam engine in the monarchy. However, the project lacked funding and Gerstner, inspired by the English engines of the time, had to downsize the machine for economic reasons and anyway did not have parts of the requisite precision and quality, so the engine did not run smoothly at all.
Gerstner’s name is one of the 72 carved below the windows of the National Museum in Prague.
