František Koláček (9 October 1851,

Slavkov u Brna Slavkov u Brna (; ) is a town in Vyškov District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,300 inhabitants. The town gave its name to the Battle of Austerlitz, which took place several kilometres west of the town. The his ...

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

– 8 December 1913,

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

physicist. Koláček studied at the German gymnasium in Brno (finished in 1868), then at the technical universities in Prague and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. At the

Charles University in Prague Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest universities in the world in continuous operation, the oldest university north of the ...

, under guidance of

Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( ; ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the understanding of the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of ...

, he obtained the doctoral decree in 1877. He worked as a teacher at the gymnasium in Brno (1 year) and then in Prague (18 years). Only in 1891 was he named professor of mathematical physics at Charles university. During 1900 - 1902 he worked as a professor at the university in Brno but then returned to Prague. Koláček worked in the fields of hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, optics and electromagnetic theory of light. He was the first one to describe the electromagnetic theory of light dispersion.

References

Příruční slovník naučný ''Příruční slovník naučný'' (PSN) was a four-volume encyclopedia in Czech published in Czechoslovakia between 1962 and 1966. The encyclopedia was published by the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The aim was to displace the older '' Ot ...

1962 (encyclopedia by

Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Czech: ''Československá akademie věd'', Slovak: ''Česko-slovenská akadémia vied'') was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Czech Academy of Science ...

): volume II, page 529.

External links

Short biography, other references (in Czech)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolacek, Frantisek 1851 births 1913 deaths 19th-century Czech scientists 19th-century physicists Czech physicists Physicists from Austria-Hungary Charles University alumni People from Slavkov u Brna Scientists from Bohemia Czech people from Austria-Hungary