George of Vega

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Vega, 1802

Georg Freiherr von Vega ( Slovenian Jurij Vega , Latinized Georgius Bartholomaei Vecha ; born March 23, 1754 in Zagorica pri Dolskem , Duchy of Carniola ; † September 26, 1802 in Vienna ) was a Slovenian mathematician and artillery officer . His most important work for technology are the 7-digit log tables and their new edition as " Vega-Bremiker ".

Engineer and artillery officer

Vega completed philosophical studies at the Laibacher Lyceum and was then employed as a navigation engineer. He first worked on the river regulations of the Sava and Ljubljanica , then switched to artillery and also tried his hand at writing. After officer training, which began in Vienna in 1780, he was in 1784 as a second lieutenant mathematics teacher in the 2nd Field Artillery Corps and as such soon to Captain transported and professor.

He first introduced analysis in the artillery schools . His lectures on mathematics were “ well suited to textbooks due to their understandable writing style ” (Brockhaus) and had more than 7 editions by 1850.

Vega was a passionate soldier and distinguished himself in the campaigns against the Turks , French and Prussians. In 1800 he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 4th artillery regiment and in the same year raised to the nobility for his services.

Activity as a mathematician

"Tabula logarithmorum vulgarium", 1797

In 1781 he published his thoughts on a metric system of measurement , which at that time were hardly recognized. A century later, however, they were one of the foundations for the introduction of this system by Emperor Franz Josef I in 1871 .

In 1789 Vega set a new arithmetic record by calculating the circle number to 140 digits (of which 126 later turned out to be correct). This record lasted for several decades.

Vega gained even greater fame by publishing his logarithm tables (2 volumes, Leipzig 1783), which, according to Brockhaus, “deserve preference over all larger tables at the same time in terms of correctness and richness”. To make the faulty Vlacq and Wolf tables unnecessary, he published his logarithmic-trigonometric manual in Leipzig in 1793 . After countless editions, it appeared from the 75th edition as Vega-Bremiker in Berlin (1856) and finally as the 100th edition with reprints until around 1970 in Vienna. In Part I (186 pages) it includes the logarithms of the numbers 1–100,000 and in Part II (370 pages) the logarithms of the sines and tangents from second to second . This narrow table interval was particularly valuable for exact calculations and contributed significantly to the general boom in engineering .

The acclaimed accuracy and reliability of these 7-digit tables, which Vega originally created for use in artillery in 1793–1797 , goes back to a rather unusual idea. The engineer officer had offered the soldiers a reward of one gold ducat for each error discovered. This spurred mathematically gifted recruits to top performance - and so Vegas tables remained the most accurate of their kind for decades. Arno Schmidt found errors in his work with logarithms in the late 1940s, and some of them were reproduced in the fictional letter to Major Vega.

Vegas’s 4-volume textbook Lectures on Mathematics (1782–1800), one of which was about so-called “ simple machines ” , also became a bestseller . Mention should also be made of publications on time measurement and a system of units of measurement that were created in the last years of life.

Vega was found dead in the Danube near Nussdorf on September 26, 1802 . It was only eight years later that it turned out that a house servant of a landlord in Spitz an der Donau had murdered him.

Vega Prize and Honors

In Slovenia , the Vega Prize is still awarded to young mathematicians every year in a competition . A portrait of Vegas was on the Slovenian 50 tolar banknote (Slovenia introduced the euro in 2007 ) and on a Slovenian postage stamp that also shows the lunar crater Vega named after him .

In Austria's capital, the Vega-Payer-Weyprecht barracks in the 14th and Vegagasse in the 19th district of Vienna still commemorate the innovative scientist and officer.

A memorial was set up in Zagorica (Vegas birthplace 20 km from Ljubljana) in 2002 (?), And an extensive exhibition on the 200th year of his death in the Technical Museum in Ljubljana / Bistra .

In his work, the writer Arno Schmidt makes various references to Vega, to whom he felt particularly connected as a mathematically interested and artillery soldier (during World War II ). Vega appears partly encrypted (“alpha Lyrae”), partly indirectly through reference to the Thesaurus logarithmorum completus (in Schmidt “the 10-digit”).

Mathematical works

  • Logarithmic, trigonometric and other tables and formulas set up for the use of mathematics (Vienna 1783. 2nd edition: 2 vols., Leipzig 1797, digitized: vol. 1 , vol. 2 )
  • Georg Vega's, major at the Kaiserl. Royal Bombardierkorps, logarithmic-trigonometric manual, instead of the small Vlackische, Wolfischen and other similar, mostly very faulty, logarithmic-trigonometric tables set up for the math-eager (Leipzig 1793)
  • Thesaurus logarithmorum completus, complete collection of larger logarithmic-trigonometric tables based on Adrian Vlack's Arithmetica Logarithmica and Trigonometria artificialis, improved, rearranged and increased (Leipzig 1794, 10-digit logarithms)
  • Instructions for the study of time (Vienna 1801)
  • Natural measurement, weight and meter system (posthumously published by Kreil 1803; new edition 1824)
  • Lectures on mathematics . Textbook in 4 volumes (Vienna 1782–1800; 8 editions up to 1850 alone)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Major Georg Freiherr von Vega , in: Arno Schmidts Wundertüte , Suhrkamp 2004
  2. ^ Heinrich von Kleist : Berliner Abendblätter from March 7, 1811

Web links and sources

Commons : Jurij Vega  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Vega, Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vega, Georg Freiherr von; Vega, Jurij; Vecha, Georgius Bartholomaei
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian soldier and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1754
PLACE OF BIRTH Zagorica , Duchy of Carniola
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1802
Place of death Vienna