Charlemagne

* Komárom, 6 December 1797 – † Paris, 2 March 1868 / astronomer, mathematician ; ; His father was a pharmacist, and he also started out in this career when he obtained the highest degree of doctor chemiae in pharmacy in 1824. He also distinguished himself with his talent for languages: he learned Latin, German, French, English and Arabic at a very young age. After moving to Vienna, he apprenticed for two years with the famous astronomer Joseph Johann von Littrow (1781–1840). He became friends with the refugees of the failed Polish War of Independence of 1830, for whom he obtained French travel documents. In Paris, he became good friends with the French astronomer and physicist François Dominique Arago (1786–1853), who later helped him in designing the Bicske observatory. Later, he met Charles Babbage (1791–1871), who created an early version of computers, and Georg Simon Plössl, an optician who primarily designed excellent astronomical instruments. Upon returning home, he came into contact with many prominent figures of the Reform Era. In 1836, he worked as the economic administrator of Count Kázmér Batthyány, while also teaching the aristocrat Hungarian and introducing him to the views of Mihály Vörösmarty, István Széchenyi, Miklós Wesselényi and Lajos Kossuth. He himself wrote many articles on political topics, and was also concerned with the issue of nationality. At this time, he also compiled astronomical tables for a yearbook, wrote articles about comets, but also about shooting stars and telescopes. He advocated the introduction of the metric system, and brought an authentic copy of the meter and mass standard from Paris with his own money, but this was only realized 6 years after his death. He made celestial and terrestrial globes in Hungarian, and József Bajza, Pál Bugát and his close friend Mihály Vörösmarty also participated in the Hungarian translation. Contrary to the custom of the time, he did not make celestial globes filled with artistic images. In 1847, he settled in Bicske, where he began building an observatory. After the failure of the 1848/49 War of Independence, he was arrested following a complaint, and when he was released, he sold his observatory to the state and lived in Vienna, and then in Paris until his death. The asteroid 115059 Nagykároly bears his name.