József Petzval (6.01.1807-17.09.1891) was an Austrian physicist and mathematician and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (1849). He was born in Béla (now Czechoslovakia). He was professor at the University of Vienna (until 1878).
His main physical work was in optics. He developed a method of correcting the aberration of an optical system (the Petzval condition) and constructed an anastigmatic objective (1840).