7 g, 250. obletnica rojstva Jurija Vege (2004) **

Vir: Banka Slovenije

Jurij Vega se je rodil 23. marca 1754 revnim kmečkim staršem v Zagorici v bližini Ljubljane. Srednjo šolo je obiskoval pri jezuitih v Ljubljani in dokončal licej z zaključnim izpitom iz fizike, matematike, logike ter metafizike. Zaposlil se je kot inženir za rečno plovbo in se ukvarjal z regulacijo Ljubljanice, Mure, Drave in Save. Kot ambiciozen mladenič je leta 1780 stopil v vojaško službo na Dunaju in se udeleževal bitk po vsej Evropi.

Z znanjem in osebno hrabrostjo je opravil vrsto izrednih dejanj in prejel najvišje vojaško odlikovanje, kasneje pa še baronski naslov in podpolkovniški čin. Njegovo truplo so septembra 1802 našli v Donavi in nikoli ni bilo pojasnjeno, ali je šlo za samomor, nesrečo ali umor.
Kot topničarski častnik, specialist za najtežje možnarje, je v mirnih časih na posebnem oddelku topničarstva poučeval matematiko in tam vpeljal pouk matematične analize. Napisal je tudi matematična in fizikalna učbenika. Pisal je o balonih, geodeziji in meteorologiji, najbolj pa se je izkazal na področju balistike in postal eden od utemeljiteljev tega področja na znanstveni podlagi.

Bil je izumitelj, ki je s pomočjo matematike izpopolnil mehanizem nihajnih ur. V razpravah se je napredno zavzemal za enoten metrsko-kilogramski merski sistem, saj je tedaj vladala na tem področju velika zmeda in šele tri generacije kasneje so ta sistem poenotili. Njegovo najpomembnejše delo pa so Logaritemske tablice. Zaradi njih je bil član več evropskih akademij znanosti. S tablicami so računali v znanosti, vsakdanjem življenju ter šolstvu široma po svetu vse do uvedbe elektronskih računalnikov. Računanje s tablicami je odločilno pripomoglo k matematizaciji naštetih področij, kar je omogočalo hitrejši potek znanstvene in tehnične revolucije.

Republika Slovenija izdaja ob 250-letnici rojstva matematika Jurija Vege tudi zlate priložnostne kovance s kombinacijo upodobitve risbe iz Vegove strokovne razprave o obliki vrteče se Zemlje (osni presek vrteče se krogle) in profila Vegove podobe, povzetega iz doprsnega kipa, ki ga je izdelal kipar Ivan Zajc (1903).
Zlatnik:

• nominalna vrednost 25.000 SIT, čistina Au 900/1000, teža 7 gramov, premer 24 milimetrov, izdano 300 kovancev.

Avtor idejnega osnutka zlatnik: Miljenko in Maja Licul, Ljubljana
Medaljerska dela: Jan Černaj, Mincovna Kremnica, š. p., Slovaška
Izdelava in kovanje: Mincovna Kremnica, š. p., Kremnica, Slovaška

- – -

250th anniversary of the Birth of Jurij Vega (2004)

Jurij Vega was born on 23 March 1754 to a poor peasant family in Zagorica, in the vicinity of Ljubljana. He went to a Jesuit secondary school in Ljubljana and completed his schooling at the lyceum, passing his examination in physics, mathematics, logic and metaphysics. He found a job as an inland navigation engineer, and worked on the Ljubljanica, the Mura, the Drava and the Sava rivers. An ambitious young man, in 1780 he entered military service in Vienna and was involved in battles the width and breadth of Europe. His know-how and his valour helped him carry out a series of extraordinary acts, for which he received the highest military decoration, later being made a baron and a lieutenant-colonel. His body was found in the Danube in September 1802, and it was never established if it was suicide, murder or just an accident.

As an artillery officer, a specialist in the heaviest mortars, in peacetime he taught mathematics at a special artillery department, introducing mathematical analysis classes and producing a mathematics and physics textbook. He wrote about balloons, land surveying and meteorology, but was most famed for his work on ballistics, becoming one of the first to give the field a scientific basis. He was an inventor, and used mathematics to improve the mechanisms of pendulum clocks. He was a progressive advocate of the metric system, and confusion reigned in this area, it was only three generations later that this system was standardised.
His most important work was his logarithmic tables, thanks to which he became a member of several European academies of science. The tables were used for calculations in science, in everyday life and in education all around the world until the introduction of electronic calculators. Using the tables to calculate made a decisive contribution to the rise of mathematics in numerous areas, which in turn made the progress of the scientific and technical revolution faster.

To mark the 250th anniversary of Jurij Vega’s birth, the Republic of Slovenia is issuing three commemorative coins featuring a combination of an image of a drawing from Vega’s essay on the shape of the rotating earth (an axial section of a rotating sphere) and a profile of Vega taken from a bust made by sculptor Ivan Zajc in 1903:

• Gold Coin; nominal value: 25,000 tolars, purity: Au 900/1000, weight: 7 g, diameter: 24 mm, series issued: 300 coins.

Original design for coins by: Miljenko and Maja Licul, Ljubljana
Coin engraving created by: Jan Černaj, Mincovna Kremnica, Kremnica, Slovakia
Production and minting: Mincovna Kremnica, Kremnica, Slovakia