- Jurij Vega
Infobox Person
name=Jurij Vega
caption=
quotation=
birth_date=birth date|1754|3|23|mf=y
birth_place=Zagorica nearDolsko ,Slovenia
dead=dead
death_date=death date and age|1802|9|26|1754|3|23|mf=y
death_place=Nußdorf nearVienna ,Austria Baron Jurij Bartolomej Vega (also correct Veha; official _la. Georgius Bartholomaei Vecha; _de. Georg Freiherr von Vega) (March 23 ,1754 –September 26 ,1802 ) was a Slovenemathematician ,physicist andartillery officer.Early life
Born in the small village of Zagorica, near Dolsko, east of
Ljubljana inSlovenia , Jurij was 6 years old when his father Jernej Veha died. Jurij (or "George" in English) was educated first in Moravče and later in 1767 attended high school for six years in Ljubljana, studying Latin, Greek,religion , German,history ,geography ,science , andmathematics . At that time there were about 500 students there. He was a schoolfellow ofAnton Tomaž Linhart , a Slovenian writer and historian. Jurij completed high school when he was 19, in 1773. After completingLyceum in Ljubljana he became a navigational engineer. "Tentamen philosophicum", a list of questions for his comprehensive examination, was preserved and is available in the Mathematical Library in Ljubljana. The problems coverlogic ,algebra ,metaphysics ,geometry ,trigonometry ,geodesy ,stereometry ,geometry ofcurve s,ballistics , and general and specialphysics .Military service
Jurij left Ljubljana five years after graduation and entered military service in 1780 as Professor of Mathematics at the Artillery School in Vienna. At that time he started to sign his last name as Vega and no longer Veha. When Jurij was 33 he married Josefa Svoboda (Jožefa Swoboda) (1771–1800), a Czech noble from
České Budějovice who was 16 at that time.Vega participated in several wars. In 1788 he served under Austrian Imperial Field-Marshal
Ernst Gideon von Laudon (1717–1790) in a campaign against the Turks atBelgrade . His command of several mortar batteries contributed considerably to the fall of the Belgrade fortress. Between 1793 and 1797 he foughtFrench Revolution aries under the command of Austrian General Dagobert-Sigismond de Wurmser (1724–1797) with the European coalition on the Austrian side. He fought atFort Louis ,Mannheim ,Mainz ,Wiesbaden ,Kehl , andDietz . In 1795 he had two 30-pound (14 kilogram) mortars cast, with conically drilled bases and a greater charge, for a firing range up to 3000 metres (3300 yards). The old 60 lb (27 kg) mortars had a range of only 1800 m (2000 yd).In September 1802 Jurij Vega was reported missing. After a few days' search his body was found. The police report concluded that it was an accident. However, the true cause of his death remains a mystery, but it is believed that he died on
1802-09-26 in Nußdorf on theDanube , near theAustria n capital,Vienna . There are suggestions that he had been murdered by the local miller for unknown reasons; one of Jurij's tools (compass) was found in the mill one year after his disappearance and it had "J V" initials on it.Fact|date=July 2007Mathematical accomplishments
Vega published a series of books of
logarithm tables. The first one appeared in 1783. Much later, in 1797 it was followed by a second volume that contained a collection of integrals and other useful formulae. His "Handbook", which was originally published in 1793, was later translated into several languages and appeared in over 100 issues. His major work was "Zakladnica vseh logaritmov" ("Thesaurus Logarithmorum Completus " or "Treasury of all Logarithms") that was first published 1794 inLeipzig . An engineer, Franc Allmer, honourable senator of the Technical university ofGraz , has found Vega's logarithmic tables with 10decimal places in the Museum of Carl Friedrich Gauss inGöttingen . Gauss used this work frequently and he has written in it several calculations. Gauss has also found some of Vega's errors in the calculations in the range of numbers, of which there are more than a million. A copy of Vega's Thesaurus belonging to the private collection of the British mathematician and computing pioneerCharles Babbage (1791-1871) is preserved at theRoyal Observatory, Edinburgh .Over the years Vega wrote a four volume textbook "Vorlesungen über die Mathematik" ("Lectures about Mathematics"). "Volume I" appeared in 1782 when he was 28 years old, "Volume II" in 1784, "Volume III" in 1788 and "Volume IV" in 1800. His textbooks also contain interesting tables: for instance, in "Volume II" one can find closed form expressions for sines of multiples of 3 degrees, written in a form easy to work with.
Vega wrote at least six scientific papers. On
August 20 ,1789 Vega achieved a world record when he calculatedpi to 140 places, of which the first 126 were correct. [http://www.southernct.edu/~sandifer/Ed/History/Preprints/Talks/Jurij%20Vega/Vega%20math%20script.pdf] This calculation he proposed to theRussian Academy of Sciences inSaint Petersburg (Санкт Петербург) in the booklet "V. razprava (The fifth discussion)", where he had found with his calculating method an error on the 113th place from the estimation of Thomas Fantet de Lagny (1660–1734) from 1719 of 127 places. Vega retained his record 52 years until 1841 and his method is mentioned still today. His article was not published by the Academy until six years later, in 1795. Vega had improvedJohn Machin 's formula from 1706::piover 4} = 4 arctan left({1over 5} ight) - arctan left({1over 239} ight)
with his formula, which is equal to Euler's formula from 1755:
:piover 4} = 5 arctan left({1over 7} ight) + 2 arctan left({3over 79} ight) ; ,
and which converges faster than Machin's formula. He had checked his result with the similar
Hutton's formula ::piover 4} = 2 arctan left({1over 3} ight) + arctan left({1over 7} ight) ; .
He had developed the second term in the series only once.
Although he worked in the subjects of ballistics, physics and
astronomy , his major contributions are to the mathematics of the second half of the 18th century.In 1781 Vega tried to push further his idea in the Austrian Habsburg monarchy about the usage of the decimal
metric system of units. His idea was not accepted, but it was introduced later under the emperor Franz Josef I in 1871.Jurij Vega was a member of the Academy of Practical Sciences in Mainz, the Physical and Mathematical Society of
Erfurt , the Bohemian Scientific Society inPrague , and the Prussian Academy of Sciences inBerlin . He was also an associate member of the British Scientific Society inGöttingen . He was awarded the Order of Maria Theresa onMay 11 ,1796 . In 1800 Jurij Vega obtained a title of hereditary baron including the right to his own coat of arms.Post of Slovenia has issued a stamp honouring Jurij Vega and the National Bank of Slovenia has issued a 50 tolar banknote in his honour.An
asteroid 14966 Jurijvega , discovered on July 30, 1997, is named after him.See also
*
Logarithm
*Mathematical table
*Ballistics
*Vega (crater) External links
* [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jbourj/money2.htm Jurij Vega on the Slovenian 50 Tolars banknote.]
*University of St Andrews ' page on Vega: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Vega.html
* [http://www.ijp.si/JurijVega/conference.html Vega and his time]
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