尤里·维加Jurij Vega

Georg Vega的名字有不同版本，所以我们先解释这些。他出生时的名字是维加 Bartolomej Veha，但后来在他20多岁时，他开始使用他名字的德语版本 Georg Freiherr 尤里·维加。他名字的拉丁语版本是 Georgius Bartholomaei Vecha，1754年3月24日他在莫拉夫采受洗时用的就是这个拉丁语版本的名字。他的父亲 Jernej Veha（1702-1760）是个贫穷的农民，在他儿子六岁时去世。Jernej Veha 于1737年与 Agata Orehek 结婚，他们有两个孩子，Anton（生于1740年）和 Helena（生于1743年）。1749年11月 Agata 去世后，Jernej 于1752年4月30日在莫拉夫采与 Helena Maselj 结婚。他们有四个孩子，Jera（生于1753年）、维加（本传记的主人公，生于1754年）、Marija（生于1756年）和 Polona（生于1758年）。在本传记中，我们将使用维加这个名字，他在大约25岁时选择了这个名字，而不是原来的 Veha，后者意为“不可靠的人”。

维加在扎戈里察度过了童年时光，并在那里上小学。在这个年幼的年纪，他就表现出对书籍的极大热爱和学习的渴望。他的老师看出这个学生非常聪明，但他的家人不希望他继续接受教育，因此维加决定必须离开家，在没有任何家庭帮助的情况下接受教育。于是，他于1767年进入卢布尔雅那的耶稣会中学，在那里学习直到1773年，当时他十九岁。在这所学校，除了数学，他还学习拉丁语、希腊语、宗教、德语、历史、地理和科学。然而，1773年7月21日，教皇克雷芒十四世颁布了《主及救赎者》诏书，解散了耶稣会。维加不得不在卢布尔雅那的国立文法学校继续学业。这所学校的数学老师是Josef Maffei，他很快意识到维加在计算方面有非凡的天赋。维加后来在生命中表达了对Maffei教学的感激，将一本书献给了他。他写道：-

我始终记得您在莱巴赫文法学校给我上的最初几堂课，我愉快地回忆起这段时光，您将我从未入数学之门引领到入门，我感激地将这本书献给您。

如果提到莱巴赫可能引起混淆，我们指出这是卢布尔雅那的德语名称。这所学校的其他重要老师有Gregor Schoettl，他教维加物理，以及Gabrijel Gruber，他教他力学和水力学。1775年，他以班级最佳学生的身份从文法学校毕业后，成为内奥地利的航海工程师，“k.k. Navigations-Ingenieur”。很可能Gabrijel Gruber影响了维加从事这一职业。在从事这项工作时，他在卢布尔雅尼察河、穆拉河、德拉瓦河和萨瓦河上工作，承担了一些由Gruber设计的项目。这些河流是斯洛文尼亚的主要河流，最终都流入多瑙河。卢布尔雅尼察河流经卢布尔雅那市。萨瓦河流近卢布尔雅那，然后穿过萨格勒布，在贝尔格莱德汇入多瑙河，而德拉瓦河穿过斯洛文尼亚东部，在汇入多瑙河之前与穆拉河汇合。维加作为航海工程师度过的五年里，他通过自学继续增加数学和物理知识。

维加看到作为航海工程师在职业上进展的机会很少，因此他自愿服兵役，搬到维也纳，并于1780年4月7日加入炮兵。同年11月18日，他被任命为维也纳炮兵学校的数学讲师。第二年，他被提升为维也纳“Garnisons-Artillerie-Distrikt”的少尉。他是一位才华横溢的教师和作家，具有出色的计算能力，正是他明显的才能使他迅速晋升。他很快意识到，由于缺乏好的教科书，数学教学变得困难得多。纠正这一点的方法当然是编写自己的教科书，这就是维加在被任命为讲师后不久开始做的工作。他根据在炮兵学校讲授的课程出版了四卷本的Vorlesungen über die Mathematik Ⓣ（数学讲义），第一卷于1782年出版。

在教科书第二卷出版之前，维加出版了他著名的表册中的第一本，即Logarithmische, trigonometrische, und andere zum Gebrauche der Mathematik eingerichtete Tafeln und Formeln Ⓣ（供数学使用的对数、三角和其他表及公式）（1783年）。他的名字出现在标题页上，为“Georg Vega，k.k.第二野战炮兵团少尉和数学讲师”。注意k.k.代表‘kaiserlich/königlich’或‘kaiserlich österreichisch/königlich böhmisch’，即‘奥地利帝国/波希米亚王国’。在该书的前言中，维加解释说，他的目标是制作精度卓越但价格低廉的表册。计算是在维加所教的士兵帮助下完成的，他对计算的准确性如此自信，以至于承诺每发现一个错误就奖励一个金币。让我们简要看一下这本书的内容。这本书的主要目的是给出从1到100,000的自然数的常用对数，精确到七位小数。第二个表给出了从1到10,500的所有与2、3和5互质的自然数的因子。第三个表给出了从1到1000的自然数的自然对数，精确到八位小数，以及从1000到10,000的素数的自然对数。第四个表给出了e的整数次幂。然而，这些表之后还有20个进一步的表。

1784年4月1日，维加晋升为中尉，同年，他的教科书第二卷问世。我们应当注意，维加对表格的喜爱延伸到了他的教科书，因为第二卷包含三角函数表。1787年对维加来说尤其多事。他于3月1日被任命为“投弹兵军团”的数学教授，并在这一年出版了Praktische Anweisung zum Bombenwerfen Ⓣ（投弹实用指南）。也是在这一年，33岁的维加娶了16岁的Josefa Swoboda。她是来自Ceské Budejovice的一位捷克贵族的女儿。1787年在该地区的历史上也很重要，因为维加在随后几年将参与的战争就是从这一年开始的。这些战争的背景要追溯到1781年，当时奥地利的约瑟夫二世与俄罗斯的叶卡捷琳娜大帝谈判达成了一项协议。约瑟夫的目标是在与普鲁士发生冲突时获得军事支持，但在俄罗斯激怒奥斯曼帝国后，后者于1787年对俄罗斯宣战。奥地利因1781年的协议而不情愿地被拖入冲突，当土耳其人于1788年进攻奥地利时，维加明确表示他希望积极参与战斗。当然，像他这样职位的人本应留在维也纳，但维加热衷于将他在数学军事应用方面的理论专长应用于实际情况。他被指派在陆军元帅Ernst Gideon von Laudon（1717-1790）麾下服役，以努力击退土耳其人。Von Laudon早已退役，但被召回领导对由土耳其人控制的贝尔格莱德的进攻。奥地利军队于1789年9月15日围攻贝尔格莱德，维加指挥迫击炮连，这项任务他特别胜任，因为他数学研究的一个课题就是重型迫击炮的研究。随后三周的战斗十分激烈，但他的战友们惊叹于维加会在炮弹从头顶飞过时坐着计算对数。重型迫击炮的有效使用——其仰角由维加校正——是奥地利人于1789年10月8日攻占贝尔格莱德的主要因素。

维加的计算能力，常常在军事战役期间进行，清楚地体现在他将π计算到140位的非凡成就上，这一记录保持了50多年。这出现在他1789年发表的一篇论文中，那一年他参与了与土耳其人的战斗。Tomaz Pisanski在[1]中讨论了计算π小数位的方法。他写到维加的成就：-

我们提到斯洛文尼亚数学家维加的贡献……不是因为他比同时代人更努力，而是因为他有更好的算法。

这个更好的算法是什么？他用了两个公式，基本上是用一个来检验另一个，即

$\Large\frac{\pi}{4}\normalsize = 5 \arctan(\large\frac{1}{7}\normalsize ) + 2 \arctan(\large\frac{3}{79}\normalsize )$和$\Large\frac{\pi}{4}\normalsize = 2 \arctan(\large\frac{1}{3}\normalsize ) + \arctan(\large\frac{1}{7}\normalsize )$。

奥地利与土耳其之间的战斗在1790年7月27日签署停战协定后结束，但一年多之后才签署了条约，即1791年8月4日的《西斯托瓦条约》。该条约签署后，维加回到维也纳的教职。维加的儿子亨里克生于1791年，1792年4月20日，第一次反法同盟战争爆发，奥地利此时正与法国作战。在随后的几年里，维加参与了许多战役，但也有能够专注于数学的时期。1753年，奥地利、普鲁士、西班牙、联省共和国和大不列颠结盟对抗法国，对维加来说是特别多事的一年。1793年4月，他被提升为少校，同年9月，他的女儿玛丽亚·特蕾莎出生。他曾隶属于达戈贝尔特·西吉斯蒙德·维尔姆泽伯爵指挥的莱茵帝国军队，并参与了那支军队在约四周战斗后于1793年10月13日突破维桑堡防线的行动。这些法国防御工事由一系列很早以前修建的堡垒组成，用以保护阿尔萨斯免受来自东方的攻击。维加也属于11月10日从法国人手中夺取路易堡的奥地利部队。尽管取得了这些胜利，法国人也赢得了胜利，收复了失地。维加在战斗期间多次回到维也纳，在那里他能够继续从事数学研究，并继续发表成果。

Logarithmisch trigonometrisches Handbuch Ⓣ（对数-三角手册）于1793年以德语和拉丁语出版。这本7位对数表包含从1到100,000的自然数的对数表以及三角函数对数表。这部非凡的著作历经100多版，包含的不仅仅是表格，因为维加在序言中解释了对数理论，然后给出了如何使用这些表格的有用例子。1794年他前往斯图加特，在那里待了两个月，同年，他当选为哥廷根皇家科学与人文学会会士。基于阿德里安·弗拉克的表格的10位表Thesaurus logarithmorum completus Ⓣ（对数全宝典）于1794年问世，这同样是一部非凡的著作，其第90版于1924年出版。

维加继续参加作为法国大革命战争一部分的战斗。他参加了1795年的曼海姆战役，并负责引入一种射程大大增加的新型重型臼炮。他还参加了1795年10月29日的美因茨战役，这是法国与奥地利军队之间的一场战斗，结果奥地利获胜。他的第三个孩子Franc于1796年2月出生，并于5月11日被授予玛丽亚·特蕾莎军事骑士十字勋章。同年10月，当奥地利军队围攻凯尔的堡垒时，维加再次在场。凯尔围城战持续到1797年1月，法国守军投降并撤退。在仍在服役期间，他为Logarithmische, trigonometrische, und andere zum Gebrauche der Mathematik eingerichtete Tafeln und FormelnⓉ（用于数学的对数、三角和其他表格与公式）第二版撰写了序言，时值1797年2月。在这篇序言中，他解释说，尽管第一版是在维也纳出版的，但第二版无法在那里出版，因此他被迫在国外寻找出版商。这第二版在莱比锡出版。同样在这篇序言中，他说他计划再出版三本数学表格书。第一本面向初学者，第二本面向成熟的数学家，第三本面向天文学家、航海者以及所有从事困难计算的人。1797年10月18日的坎波福尔米多条约结束了敌对行动，奥地利人接受了拿破仑·波拿巴领导下法国人的胜利，此后维加能够花更多时间在数学上。在接下来的几年里，他写了许多研究论文，并继续致力于他的表格的新版本。例如，他于1798年发表了论文Mathematische Betrachtungen über eine sich um eine unbewegliche Achse gleichförmig drehende feste KugelⓉ（关于绕固定轴旋转的实心球的数学思考）。他的教科书Vorlesungen über die MathematikⓉ（数学讲座）的第三卷，他在加入军事战役之前已完成，已于1788年出版，但现在他能够致力于第四卷，该卷于1800年出版。同年，他出版了Versuch über die Enthüllung eines Geheimnisses in der bekannten Lehre der allgemeinen GravitationⓉ（关于著名万有引力学说中一个秘密的揭示的论文）。然而，1800年7月对维加来说是一个悲惨的月份，因为他的妻子Josefa于7日去世，然后不到两周后，他的女儿Maria Tereza去世。

1800年8月22日，维加被授予世袭男爵头衔，包括拥有自己纹章的权利。也许在这一点上我们应该注意到授予维加的其他荣誉。他当选为埃尔福特应用科学科学院、布拉格皇家波希米亚学会以及柏林科学院的成员。1802年初，维加晋升为中校。1802年9月11日，他将最后一部作品寄给维也纳的一家出版商，几天后的9月17日，他被报告失踪。搜索一直未成功，直到9月26日他的尸体在维也纳附近的努斯多夫的多瑙河中被发现。官方死因是事故，但一些人怀疑他自杀，而另一些人怀疑他被谋杀。一个常见的理论认为他在试图购买马匹后被磨坊主谋杀，这似乎没有事实依据。

所展示的图片来自为纪念他而发行的斯洛文尼亚50托拉尔纸币。斯洛文尼亚发行了三枚纪念币，以纪念他2004年诞辰250周年。还发行了一枚斯洛文尼亚邮票以纪念他。1997年7月30日发现的小行星14966 Jurijvega以他的名字命名，维也纳的一条街道也是如此。

There are different versions of Georg Vega's name so we begin by explaining these. He was given the name Jurij Bartolomej Veha but later in life, when he was in his 20s, he began using the German version of his name Georg Freiherr von Vega. The Latin version of his name is Georgius Bartholomaei Vecha and he was baptised with this Latin version of his name on 24 March 1754 in Moravce. His father, Jernej Veha (1702-1760), was a poor farmer, and died when his son was six years old. Jernej Veha had married Agata Orehek in 1737 and they had two children, Anton (born 1740) and Helena (born 1743). Following Agata's death in November 1749, Jernej married Helena Maselj in Moravce on 30 April 1752. They had four children, Jera (born 1753), Jurij (the subject of this biography, born 1754), Marija (born 1756) and Polona (born 1758). During this biography we will use the name Vega which, when he was about 25 years old, he chose rather than the original Veha which means 'unreliable person'.

Jurij spent the years of his childhood in Zagorica where he attended primary school. Already at this young age, he showed a great love of books and a desire to study. His teachers saw that their pupil was very intelligent, but his family did not want him to continue with his education so Jurij decided that he would have to leave home and get an education without any help from his family. Consequently he entered the Jesuit secondary school in Ljubljana in 1767, studying there until 1773 when he was nineteen years old. In addition to mathematics, he also studied Latin, Greek, religion, German, history, geography and science as this school. However, on 21 July 1773, pope Clement XIV issued the 'Dominus ac Redemptor' disbanding the Jesuit Order. Jurij had to continue his education at the State grammar school in Ljubljana. His mathematics teacher at this school was Josef Maffei who quickly realised that the Vega had a remarkable talent for calculating. Vega showed his appreciation of Maffei's teaching when, later in life, he dedicated a book to him. He wrote:-

I always think of the first lectures the you gave me at the grammar school at Laibach and I happily remember this time when you brought me from outside of mathematics to the inside and I gratefully dedicate this book to you.

In case the reference to Laibach might cause confusion, we note that this is the German name for Ljubljana. Other important teachers at this school were Gregor Schoettl, who taught Vega physics, and Gabrijel Gruber who taught him mechanics and hydraulics. After graduating from the grammar school as the best pupil in his class in 1775, he became a navigational engineer, "k.k. Navigations-Ingenieur" in Inner Austria. It is likely that Gabrijel Gruber influenced Vega to take up this profession. While carrying out this job, he worked on the Ljubljanica, the Mura, the Drava and the Sava rivers, undertaking some projects designed by Gruber. These rivers are the main ones of Slovenia, all of which eventually flow into the Danube. The Ljubljanica is the river which flows through the city of Ljubljana. The Sava flows close to Ljubljana, then through Zagreb, reaching the Danube at Belgrade, while the Drava crosses eastern Slovenia and joins the Mura before reaching the Danube. The five years Vega spent as a navigational engineer were years during which he continued to increase his knowledge of mathematics and physics by studying on his own.

Vega saw little opportunity to progress in his profession as a navigational engineer so he volunteered for military service, moving to Vienna and joining the artillery on 7 April 1780. He was appointed to a lectureship in mathematics at the Artillery School in Vienna on 18 November of that year. In the following year he was promoted to sub-lieutenant in the "Garnisons-Artillerie-Distrikt" in Vienna. He was a talented teacher and writer, with a great skill as a calculator, and it was his obvious abilities that had been the reason for his rapid promotion. He quickly realised that teaching mathematics was made much more difficult due to a lack of good textbooks. The way to rectify this, of course, was to write his own textbook and this is what Vega began working on soon after his appointment as a lecturer. He published the four-volume Vorlesungen über die Mathematik Ⓣ based on the lectures he gave at the Artillery School, the first volume appearing in 1782.

Before the second volume of the textbook appeared, Vega had published the first of his famous books of tables, namely Logarithmische, trigonometrische, und andere zum Gebrauche der Mathematik eingerichtete Tafeln und Formeln Ⓣ (1783). His name appears on the title page as "Georg Vega, Sub-lieutenant and Lecturer in Mathematics at the k.k. Second Field Artillery Regiment" Note that k.k. stands for 'kaiserlich/königlich' or 'kaiserlich österreichisch/königlich böhmisch', namely 'Imperial Austrian/Royal Bohemian'. In the Preface to the work Vega explained that his aim was to produce tables which were of outstanding accuracy but available at a low price. The calculations were done with the help of the soldiers whom Vega taught, and he was so confident of their accuracy that he promised a gold ducat for every mistake found. Let us look briefly at the contents of the book. The main aim of the book was to give the common logarithms of the natural numbers from 1 to 100,000 to seven decimal places. The second table gives factors of all natural numbers from 1 to 10,500 which are coprime to 2, 3 and 5. The third table gives the natural logarithms of the natural numbers from 1 to 1000 to eight decimal places, and of the prime numbers from 1000 to 10,000. The fourth table gives the integral powers of e. These tables, however, are followed by 20 further tables.

On 1 April 1784, Vega was promoted to lieutenant and, in the same year, the second volume of his textbook appeared. We should note that Vega's love of tables extended to his textbook, for this second volume contains trigonometric tables. The year 1787 was particularly eventful for Vega. He was appointed as professor of mathematics in the "Bombardierkorps" on 1 March and in this year he published Praktische Anweisung zum Bombenwerfen Ⓣ. This was also the year in which the 33-year old Vega married the 16-year old Josefa Swoboda. She was the daughter of a Czech nobleman from Ceské Budejovice. The year 1787 was also significant in the history of the region for the wars in which Vega would participate over the following years began in that year. The background to these wars goes back to 1781 when Joseph II of Austria negotiate a pact with Catherine the Great of Russia. Joseph's aim had been to gain military support in case of a conflict with Prussia but, after Russia provoked the Ottoman Empire, they declared war on Russia in 1787. Austria was unwillingly dragged into the conflict through the 1781 pact and when the Turks attacked Austria in 1788, Vega made it clear that he wanted to participate actively in the fighting. Certainly someone in his position would have been expected to remain in Vienna, but Vega was keen to apply his theoretical expertise in military applications of mathematics to practical situations. He was assigned to serve under Field-Marshal Ernst Gideon von Laudon (1717-1790) in an effort to push the Turks back. Von Laudon had long been retired but was recalled to lead an attack on Belgrade which was held by the Turks. The Austrian forces laid siege to Belgrade on 15 September 1789 and Vega commanded mortar batteries, a task that he was specially well equipped to do since one of the topics of his mathematical research had been the study of heavy mortars. The fighting over the following three weeks was fierce but his fellow soldiers marvelled that Vega would sit calculating logarithms while cannonballs flew over his head. The effective use of the heavy mortars, whose angle of elevation had been corrected by Vega, was a major factor in the Austrians taking Belgrade on 8 October 1789.

Vega's calculating abilities, often carried on during military campaigns, is clear in his remarkable achievement of calculating π to 140 places, a record which stood for over 50 years. This appears in a paper which he published in 1789, the year he was involved in fighting the Turks. Tomaz Pisanski discusses methods for calculating decimal digits of π in [1]. He writes about Vega's achievement:-

We mention the contribution of the Slovenian mathematician Jurij Vega ... not because he worked harder than his contemporaries, but because he had a better algorithm.

What was this better algorithm? He used two formulas, basically using one as a check against the other, namely

$\Large\frac{\pi}{4}\normalsize = 5 \arctan(\large\frac{1}{7}\normalsize ) + 2 \arctan(\large\frac{3}{79}\normalsize )$ and $\Large\frac{\pi}{4}\normalsize = 2 \arctan(\large\frac{1}{3}\normalsize ) + \arctan(\large\frac{1}{7}\normalsize )$.

The fighting between Austria and the Turks ended when a truce was signed on 27 July 1790, but it was over a year later that a treaty was signed, namely the Treaty of Sistova on 4 August 1791. After this treaty had been signed, Vega returned to his teaching position in Vienna. Vega's son Henrik was born in 1791 and, on 20 April 1792, the War of the First Coalition began in which Austria was now fighting the French. Vega was involved in many battles over the following years but also had periods when he was able to concentrate on his mathematics. The year 1753, in which Austria, Prussia, Spain, the United Provinces, and Great Britain allied against France, was a particularly eventful one for Vega. In April 1793 he was promoted to major and in September of that year his daughter Maria Tereza was born. He had been attached to the Imperial Army of the Rhine under the command Dagobert Sigismund, Count Wurmser and he was part of that army which, after around four weeks of fighting, broke through the Lines of Wissembourg on 13 October 1793. These French defensive lines consisted of a series of fortifications built much earlier to protect Alsace from an attack from the east. Vega was also part of the Austrian force that captured Fort Louis from the French on 10 November. Despite these victories, the French also won victories recovering their losses. Vega returned to Vienna at various stages during the fighting, where he was able to continue to work on his mathematics which he continued to publish.

Logarithmisch trigonometrisches Handbuch Ⓣ was published in 1793 in both German and Latin. This book of 7-figure logarithm tables contained tables of the logarithms of the natural numbers from 1 to 100,000 and the logarithms of the trigonometric functions. This remarkable work, which went through over 100 editions, contained more than just tables, for in it Vega explained the theory of logarithms in the Preface, and then went on to give useful examples of how the tables could be used. In 1794 he went to Stuttgart where he spent two months and, in the same year, he was elected to the Royal Society of Sciences and Humanities in Göttingen. The 10-figure tables Thesaurus logarithmorum completus Ⓣ, based on Adriaan Vlacq's tables, appeared in 1794 and again this was a remarkable work with the 90th edition appearing in 1924.

Vega continued to participate in the fighting which was part of the French Revolutionary Wars. He fought in the Battle of Mannheim in 1795 and was responsible for the introduction of a new design of heavy mortar with a greatly increased range. He also fought in the Battle of Mainz on 29 October 1795, a battle between French and Austrian troops which resulted in an Austrian victory. His third child, Franc, was born in February 1796 and, on 11 May, he was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Maria Theresien Ordens, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Maria Theresa. Vega was again present when the Austrian forces besieged the fort at Kehl later that year in October. The Siege of Kehl lasted until January 1797 when the French defenders capitulated and withdrew. While still on active duty, he wrote the Preface for a second edition of Logarithmische, trigonometrische, und andere zum Gebrauche der Mathematik eingerichtete Tafeln und Formeln Ⓣ in February 1797. In this Preface he explained that, although the first edition had been published in Vienna, it was impossible to get the second edition published there so he was forced to find a publisher abroad. This second edition was published in Leipzig. Also in this Preface he said that he planned to publish another three books of mathematical tables. The first would be aimed at beginners, the second at established mathematicians, and the third at astronomers, navigators and all others who were involved in difficult computations. Vega was able to spend more time on his mathematics after the treaty of Campo Formido of 18 October 1797 ended hostilities, with the Austrians accepting defeat by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the next years he wrote a number of research papers as well as continuing to work on new editions of his tables. For example, he published the paper Mathematische Betrachtungen über eine sich um eine unbewegliche Achse gleichförmig drehende feste Kugel Ⓣ in 1798. The third volume of his textbook Vorlesungen über die Mathematik Ⓣ, which he had completed before he joined the military campaigns, had been published in 1788 but now he was able to work on a fourth volume which was published in 1800. In the same year he published Versuch über die Enthüllung eines Geheimnisses in der bekannten Lehre der allgemeinen Gravitation Ⓣ. However, July 1800 was a tragic month for Vega for his wife Josefa died on the 7th and then, less than two weeks later, his daughter Maria Tereza died.

On 22 August 1800 Vega was given the hereditary title of baron, including the right to his own coat of arms. Perhaps at this point we should note other honours which had been given to Vega. He was elected to the Academy of Applied Sciences in Erfurt, the Royal Bohemian Society of Learning in Prague, and the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In early 1802 Vega was promoted to lieutenant colonel. On 11 September 1802 he sent his last work to a publisher in Vienna and, a few days later on 17 September, he was reported missing. A search was unsuccessful until his body was found in the Danube at Nussdorf near Vienna on 26 September. The official cause of death was an accident but some suspect he committed suicide while others suspect that he was murdered. A common theory that he was murdered by a miller after attempting to buy his horse appears to have no factual foundation.

The picture displayed is from a Slovenian 50 Tolar bank note issued in his honour. Three commemorative coins were issued by Slovenia to honour the 250th anniversary of his birth in 2004. A Slovenian stamp has also been issued to honour him. The asteroid 14966 Jurijvega, discovered on 30 July 1997, has been named for him as has a street in Vienna.