In the 19th and 20th centuries, Austria was a major European scientific center and gave the world many famous scientists. One of them is Jan Nepomucen Franke, a mechanic by profession, a professor with a scientific degree, and he was also Doctor Honoris Causa of the Lviv Polytechnic, a member of the Polish Academy of Knowledge. Awarded with high Austrian awards.
Biography
The famous Jan Franke was born on October 4, 1846 in Lvov. At that time, the city belonged to the Austro-Hungarian state and was called Lemberg. The city was completely European. There was no difference with the big cities of Europe: the same houses, the same shops and cafes, the same way of life, the same way of life, the same traditions. In the Austrian Lviv, technical and scientific inventions were born, advanced technologies at that time were introduced. Here began one of the first in the empire gas, and later electric street lighting, road transport, telephone communications.
Jan Franke graduated from high school in Lviv. Then, from 1864 to 1866, he passed two courses of study at the Lviv Technical Institute (Faculty of Machine Construction), now the National University "Lviv Polytechnic", which has a rating class "C" meaning a "high level" of graduates' training.
From 1866 to 1869, Jan Franke studied at the Vienna University of Technology. One of the largest universities in Vienna, founded in 1815 under the name "Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute". Currently, the university has 8 faculties with 56 institutes, including 21 undergraduate departments, 43 graduate departments and 3 doctoral departments. The curriculum and research activities of the university are focused on technical and natural sciences.
Scientist career
Returning to Lviv, Jan Franke became an assistant at the Department of Mechanics and Descriptive Geometry of the Lviv Technical Institute, which was headed by geometer, artist and musician Karol Mashkovsky. At the same time, the scientist lectured for chemistry students, taught mechanics at the Higher Field Cultivation School in the village of Dublyany, 6 km from Lviv, which began to operate on the funds and under the patronage of the Galician Economic Society from January 9, 1856 to disseminate advanced management methods in field cultivation and forestry. Since 1878, the school received the tutelage of the Regional Government of Galicia and the Seim and was named the Higher Agricultural School. Since that time, the institution was built on the university model. Departments, laboratories, experimental stations were opened here, scientific research was carried out. Nowadays it is the Lviv State Agrarian University - one of the oldest and most prestigious higher educational institutions of agricultural education in Ukraine.
For a year from 1869 to 1870, Jan Franke studied mathematics in Zurich and astronomy at the Paris Sorbonne.
Meanwhile, the Lviv Technical Institute was transformed into the "Technical Academy", and the department where Franke worked was reorganized, a new one was created - the department of theoretical mechanics. Subsequently, the department was renamed "Theoretical Mechanics and Machine Theory". A young, then 24-year-old, Jan Franke was elected as the manager. Subsequently, the scientist repeatedly served as the rector of a technical institute (from 1874 to 1875, from 1880 to 1881, from 1890 to 1891). At the end of the century, the "Technical Academy" developed rapidly, responding to the personnel needs of the technical intelligentsia. New specialized departments were opened, scientists from other countries were involved. The language of instruction was exclusively Polish.
From 1876 - Jan Franke was a corresponding member, from 1885 - a full member of the Krakow Academy of Sciences, which consisted of three departments: philological, historical and philosophical and physical and mathematical. Each department has published many monuments and valuable monographs.
In 1880 Jan Franke entered the Polytechnic Society in Lvov. From 1895 - Honorary Member of the Society. By the end of the century, the number and specialization of scientific societies in Lvov had increased dramatically, as had their polarization along ethnic lines (Jewish and Armenian societies were exclusively educational and charitable). Science, especially social and humanitarian, was closely related to national goals. The Polish scientific intelligentsia in Lvov cared primarily about the national character of humanitarian knowledge.
Jan Franke also served as the regional inspector of real and industrial schools in Lviv. He made a great contribution to the founding of 10 real schools, in particular, the state industrial school in Lviv and various types of industrial schools in Buchach, Yaroslav, Sulkovichi, Ternopil, Stanislav, etc.
At the post of vice-rector and rector, the scientist saw an insufficient number of qualified applicants who could study at the "Technical Academy", therefore, since 1892, as an inspector of secondary and industrial schools, he increases the number of real and industrial schools.
Scientific works and awards
Jan Franke has scientific works in the field of mechanical engineering and the history of exact sciences. The scientist wrote a textbook on the maintenance of steam boilers (published in 1877, reprinted in 1891, 1899 and several more times), published a biography of the 17th century Polish scientist Jan Brozka, based on his own research work with archival data. Author of over 20 scientific papers on theoretical mechanics, kinematic geometry and the history of mathematical sciences. Jan Franke Awarded with high Austrian honors.
The scientist died and was buried at the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv in 1918.
