Talk:Joseph Petzval

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Pjacobi asked about some details on him in Hungarian. Here you are. I try to translate some info back to the article but not right now.

--grin ✎ 18:38, 2004 Jul 27 (UTC)

de:User:Juro has done a fine job of extending the bio in german (de:Josef Maximilian Petzval), using sources above and sources in Slovak. I plan to do the translation to en, but it will take some time. If anybody is interested in starting the translation, don't hesitate. Pjacobi 09:09, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • I pulled this from the article. It was attempted to be commented out, so I put it here. Amalas 16:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Jozef Maximilián Petzval (also Josef Maximilian Petzval and Petzvál József Miksa) (6 January 1807 — 17 September 1891)

Petzval was born in Spišská Belá (German: Zipser Bela, Hungarian: Szepesbéla), Kingdom of Hungary (now in Slovakia), he died in Vienna, Austria. He was an ethnic Slovak, but due to his strong ties to Budapest, he is often counted as Hungarian.

Petzval studied and later lectured at the University of Pest (part of the later Budapest). In 1837 he accepted a chair of mathematics at the University of Vienna.


Petzval is most well known for the construction of the Petzval portrait lens, an optical design still in use 150 years after its invention. He did extensive work on aberration in optical systems, some key topics were later named after him:

  • Petzval surface is the curved parabolic image surface of an uncorrected lens system.
  • Petzval condition is the design constraint for lens systems which make the image surface a plane.

In mathematics he worked on applications of the Laplace transform.

In 1957, the Joseph Petzval Award was founded for his memory in Hungary, to award achievements in optics, acoustics, film and video technology, precision mechanics, photochemistry, and theatre technology. There exists a Joseph Petzval Medal as well.

Hi! I'm writing the hungarian version of the Joseph Petzval site, its here. The details what I found are from here, and some other sources, mainly what I learned in school abt him. Of course, as almost everybody who born within the borders of the former Kingdom of Hungary, the ethnic origin is the first question.

  • In this site, he is mentioned as of german origin, but he (not hungarians, or others) considered himself as hungarian despite his origin or mother language.
  • He became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1873, and (date not mentioned) member of the Vienna (or Austrian?) Academy of Science also.
  • The Joseph Petzval Award was founded in 1962 not 1957, by the Scientific Society for Optics, Acoustics, Motion Pictures and Theatre Technology in Hungary. The winners are here.
  • He was honoured with a state medal on his 70th birthday, wich was founded by and named after Franz Joseph I of Austria.
  • He was buried in Vienna also, the city honored him with a tomb and named a road after him. A road is named after him also in Budapest and Braunsweig.
  • He was the one of the founders of the Vienna Photo Club, wich honored him with a memorial monument (hope this is the good expression) wich can be seen in its original place, in the University of Vienna.
  • In his later life, after he retired at the age of 69, he became more and more misanthrope, and let only to his old friends to visit him.
  • He created a type of photocamera, named orthoscope /orthoskop/, in english it often called 'monorail'. It looked like this, but not this is not that camera. Petzval's invention was that 'rail' wich is used in the moving of the objective and (its 'staff') of the camera. Before this, only Box cameras (see pic) were existed. It is the ancestor of the modern studio cameras also.
  • I suggest you to use http://www.stars21.com for mass translations from slavic languages or from hungarian to english. The 'to english' part of it is quite usable, but it is better to translate in smaller parts, so less misstranslations can happen. --VinceB 19:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't know how is it going in the enwiki, but when Petzval born, the city was called Szepesbéla, only 30years after his death became 'Spišská Belá'. Maybe writing it: born...Szepesbéla(now Spisska Bela)... --VinceB 20:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slovak extremist definition?

Why is this Slovak and Slovak and again Slovak? He wasn't born in Slovakia, he wasn't Slovakian citizen and he wasn't even German. He clearly defined himself as ethnically Hugarian. Though his family had German origins(and not Slovakian..). Or if the current slovakian pals don't agree that there was Hungarian Kingdom in that time look at Petzval as a part of the Hungarian minority:) in Slovakia, the end is the same: he was Hungarian. There are clear evidences near his ethnic origin, and there are mentions, critical comments before mine but i've seen no response for those. So when there will be responses, we can continue the discussion.

[edit] Petzval is not Hungarian? Why?

I asked for references about his ethnicity. Even Petzwal himself thought he was Hungarian but let's see if there is anything which underpins that he wasn't Hungarian. According to Kalló Péter his colleague, Petzval said about himself that he was the "devoted son of the Hungarian homeland".

[edit] German

LOL. You ppl are funny :-) Slovakians slovakize, Romanians romanianize everthing wich they can about old Hungary's history/culture/ppl, no matter how big lie is it.

Hungarians are tend to look at everthing and everybody as a Hungarian, who or who's parents/relatives spoke the language. :-) LOL

PETZVAL WAS CZECH-GERMAN, but more likely of German heritage. Petzval is not a slavic name. Either his mother's: Kreutzmann. Szepes was that time absolute predominantly german inhabited. LOL, you creepy nationalists. :))) --91.120.92.221 10:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

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