Croatian famous

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Rudjer Boskovic

The greatest and most famous Croatian philosopher and scientist Rudjer Boskovic (Boscovich, 1711-1787), was born in Dubrovnik, where he was educated in the Jesuit Collegium. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a member of St.Petersbug Academy, "membre correspondant" of the French Academie Royale des Sciences, a member of the Accademia dell'Arcadia, a professor at many European universities. Very delicate work on repairing the cupola of St. Peter's church in the Vatican (diameter: 42m) was entrusted to R. Boskovic, a proof that he was a leading European authority for static computations and civil engineering of that time. Upon the request of Austrian Empress Maria Theresia, Boskovic was solving the problem of stability of Royal Library (now National Library) in Vienna.
He was also the founder of the astronomical observatory in Brera near Milan. In 1773 a charter granted by Louis XV made him a French subject. Soon he was appointed by Louis XV to a very prestigious position and became the Director of Naval Optics of the French Navy in Paris (Optique Militaire de la Marine Royale de France). He left to his adoptive country an achromatic telescope and micrometer. Boskovic spent nine years in France, and became a good friend to many outstanding scientist, like the mathematician Clairaut, Lalande, Buffon. When D'Alembert took him for Italian, he hastened to correct him.
Boskovic stayed 7 months in England and met many famous scientists there: James Bradley (famous astronomer), George Parker (president of the Royal Academy), Samuel Johnson (Lexicographer), Edmund Burke (philosopher and political writer), Joshua Reynolds (the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts), and others. It is interesting that in England he designed a telescope filled with water in all its components, which was implemented at the Greenwich observatory in 1871, that is, 84 years after his death. He also met Benjmanin Franklin, who showed him some of his electrical experimentsBoskovic was also a brilliant Croatian Latinist poet. He wrote an extensive scientific epic De solis et lunae defectibus (On Solar and Lunar Eclipse) published in London in 1760. It contains 5570 Latin verses, and was dedicated to the Royal Society of England whose member he was. In the title one can read "Father r. Boskovic, of the Jesuit Order", although at that time it was forbidden for Jesuits to live and work in England. The epic was written in the manner of Roman classics, in dactilus hexameter. With his theory of forces R. Boskovic was a forerunner of modern physics for almost two centuries. It was described in his most important book Theoria Philosophiae naturalis (Vienna 1758, Venice 1763, London 1922, American edition in 1966).
Werner Heisenberg (Nobel prize for physics in 1932) wrote the following: Among scientists from the 18th century Boskovic occupies outstanding place as a theologian, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. His "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" announced hypotheses which were confirmed only in the course of last fifty years.
Robert Marsh, the author of Physics and Poets, credits Boskovic with the idea of FIELD. Faraday and others took the idea from him, see here. He was the first to apply probability to the theory of errors. Laplace and Gauss acknowledged their indebtedness to his work which led to the Legendre principle of least squares in statistics (stating that the best fitting line is the one with the smallest sum of squared residuals).
He was also very active in astronomy and diplomacy. A great many letters sent to his sister and two brothers written in Croatian witness that he did not neglect his mother tongue. So in one of his letters he wrote that in one of European cities he saw soldiers - "our Croats" (nase Hrvate). He also wrote poetry. Most of his manuscripts are kept in the special Boskovic Archives in the Rare Books library in Berkeley, University of California, USA:
altogether 180 items and including 66 scientific treatises, plus rich correspondence comprising over 2,000 letters, among others with Euler, D'Alambert, Lagrange, Laplace, Jacobi and Bernoulli; he had intense correspondence with his friend Voltaire.
Some of his books, articles and letters, together with other documents, are kept in the famous Franciscan monastery (Samostan Male Brace) in Dubrovnik. Its library possesses 30,000 volumes, 22 incunabula, 1,500 valuable handwritten documents. It was severely damaged in the aggression in 1991/92 (shelled by the Serbian Army - 37 direct hits).

Marin Getaldic - Ghetaldus

Marin Getaldic - Ghetaldus (1568-1626) born in Dubrovnik, was the most outstanding Croatian scientist of his time. He studied in Italy, England and Belgium. His best results are mainly in physics, especially optics, and mathematics. Among his numerous books let us mention Promotus Archimedus (Rome, 1603) and De resolutione et compositione mathematica (Rome, 1630), in which Getaldic appears as a pioneer of algebraization of geometry. His contributions to geometry had been cited by Christian Huygens and Edmond Halley. Getaldic is the constructor of the parabolic mirror (diameter 2/3 m), kept today in the National Maritime Museum in London. During his sojourn in Padova he met Galileo Galilei, with whom he corresponded regularly. He was a good friend to the French mathematician F. Viéte. The fact that the post of professor of mathematics had been offered to him in Louvain in Belgium, at that time one of the most famous university centers in Europe, proves his high scientific reputation.
A Venetian Paolo Scarpi wrote about him: In mathematics he was like a demon, and in his heart - like an angel.
facts of African culture to the Zagreb Ethnographic museum.

Antun Lucic

Antun Lucic (americanized name is Anthony F. Lucic; born in Split 1855, died in Washington 1921) discovered the first major gusher in Texas, The Lucas gusher, flowing at the rate of 80,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. It blew in January 1901. About 50,000 people came to see it. This meant the earliest massive exploitation of oil and petroleum in the world. Antun Lucic, known as Anthony F. Lucas (F. = Francis is after his father Franjo, mariner and shipbuilder from the island of Hvar) believed that the nearby Spindletop hill, near the town of Beaumont, covered a vast pool of oil. His company became one of the first oil companies in Texas. Antun Lucic was a mining engineer who completed his studies at the Polytechnic institute in Graz, Austria, where also his fellow countryman Nikola Tesla later studied. By 1902, as many as 285 wells were operating on Spindletop Hill and over 600 oil companies had been chartered (the population of Spindletop sprang from 8,000 in 1901 to 60,000 in 1902, i.e. in just a year!). In this way Captain Anthony Lucas enabled the United States to surpass Russia as the world's leading oil producer. With the Lucas gusher, a black-gold rush began, and fortune-seekers from all over the world poured into Texas. Over time, Houston became a center of the oil industry, and a captive of the British-dominated global oil cartel.
Anthony Lucas (Antun Lucic) invented the so called "Christmas tree", which is the system of valves and pipes installed on the wellhead to harness a gusher. The "Christmas tree" is connected to the piping for transportation or storage of oil. The naval fuel board program adopted by the USA Government in 1901 specified that all the vessls should be equiped for the burning of oil as fuel. Railroads in increasing number were using it, and manufacturers were substituting it for coal and gas. At that time the automobile industry just began to develop, and the importance of Lucic's discovery for its further expansion was enormous.
Spindle Top in 1902 Antun Lucic is also considered to be the founder of modern petroleum reservoir engineering. He was consulting engineer in USA, Russia, Mexico, Algeria, and Romania. As an expert in mining he was elected the life long chairman of the American Committee for Oil and Gas (later called Petroleum Division, more information). In 1936 The American Institute for Geological and Metallurgical Investigations founded a prize named after him: Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal.

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), born in Croatia (at that time within Austria-Hungary), is well known and need not be particularly introduced. We feel it is necessary to cite his words that he was equally proud of his Croatian motherland and Serbian descent. He completed his elementary and secondary school education in Croatia (in Gospic and Karlovac), and studied in Graz and Prague. He is the father of alternating electrical current technology and the three phase system. He is equally known by his contribution to the high frequency technology and wireless communications. The impact of Tesla's numerous inventions (112 patents during his work in the USA) on the development of modern civilization is immeasurable. The unit for magnetic induction Tesla, was named after him (Conference general des poids et mesures, Paris, 1960). He refused to receive the Nobel prize which he had to share with T.A. Edison.
It seems that Nikola Tesla was the first one to discover the electron. This can be seen in his article "Reply to J.J. Thomson's note", published in Electrical Engineer, New York, August 26, 1891. In this article Tesla claims that his experiments prove the existence of charged particles ("small charged balls"), while J.J. Thomson denied this. It was only five years later that Thomson proved the existence of electron using another experiment. See [Centuries of Natural Sciences in Croatia 2, p. 62, article by academician Vladimir Paar, outstanding Croatian physicist].
The Supreme Court of the USA overturned Marconi's patent of modern radio in favor of Nikola Tesla in 1943, soon after his death. Tesla died in New York, in circumstances close to poverty.

Anthony Maglica

Anthony Maglica, holder of hundreds of patents and trademarks, founded Mag Instrument, Inc, in Los Angeles in 1955, and designed Mag-Lite flashlight, which is now an American product icon, among 100 top products that "America makes best". The Maglite products have been honored by the Japan Institute of Design and the Museum for Applied Art in Germany. Mag Instrument donated thousands of flashlights to aid in the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001. Born in New York, and as a child raised in Croatia, Tony Maglica has plenty of other interests which include also Zlarin, Croatia, where he grew up.

Faust Vrancic

The first technical discoveries are related to the name of Faust Vrancic (lat. Faustus Verantius, italianized name Fausto Veranzio, hungarized name Faustus Verancsics, 1551-1617). It is known that he collaborated with Tycho Brache and Johannes Keppler. Vrancic was fluent in at least seven languages. At the court of King Rudolph II in Hradcani in Prague (Rudloph II was Roman-German Emperor and Croatian-Hungarian King) he worked as his secretary, and in that period completed his important dictionary of five most noble European languages (Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europeae linguarum: Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmaticae et Hungaricae) and published in Venice in 1595. He is best known for his book of inventions in Machinae Novae, published also in Venice in 1595. The book was financially supported by the French King Louis XIII, and the Toscan Duke Cosimo II de Medici. Among his numerous inventions the most famous is the parachute, which he tested in Venice. It is true that Leonardo da Vinci had a similar idea earlier, but he made only a rough sketch of it, of pyramidal shape, while Vranic's parachute had rectangular shape, as today. Vrancic also constructed a mill driven by tides, ropeway, gave a new construction of metal bridges (suspended by iron chains, i.e. suspension bridges), described in his famous book on mechanics Machinae novae (61 constructions, Venice, 1595). It was not until the late 18th century, that is, two centuries later, that such bridges were built. The book was soon translated from Latin into Italian, Spanish, French and German. A sketch of his well known Homo volans (parachutist) appearing in Machinae novae is often attributed to Leonardo in the literature, which is wrong. Vrancic was the Chancellor of king Rudolph II for Hungary and Transylvania. Faust Vrancic performed a jump with his parachute somewhere in Venice in order to test it. This fact is explicitly stated in a book written by English bishop John Willkins (1614-1672), secretary of the Royal Society in London, only 30 years after the jump. The title of his book which contains this important testimony about Faust Vrancic is Mathematical Magic of the Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanical Geometry, part I: Concerning Mechanical Powers Motion, part II, Deadloss or Mechanical Motions, published in London in 1648.
Vrancic also described in his book Machinae Novae the first wind turbine.

Ivan Lupis Vukic

The first torpedo was constructed by Ivan Lupis Vukic in the 19th century in Rijeka, where its production had started in 1866 in the Whitehead factory. He was born in the village of Nakovane on the beautiful Peljesac peninsula near Dubrovnik.

Gaja Alaga

One of our best theoretical physicists was Gaja Alaga (1924-1988), member of the Croatian nobility from Backa and Bunjevci Croat. He worked not only in Zagreb, but also at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Berkeley, Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich etc. In 1955, in cooperation with K. Alder from Switzerland, A. Bohr from Denmark and B. Mottelson from the USA, he discovered the so called K-selection rules and intensity rules for beta and gamma transitions in deformed nuclei.

Josip Belusic

In 1888 Josip Belusic constructed the first electric speedometer. Belusic was born in the region of Labin in Istria, and was professor in Kopar. This invention was patented in Austria - Hungary under the name of "velocimeter.".

Peruvian Bielovucic

Peruvian Croat Juan (Jean) Bielovucic (1889-1949) was one of the first aviators in history. In 1913 he traversed for the first time the Alps by monoplane (20km in 26 minutes), reaching the height of 3200 m. In 1911 he performed the first flight in his native Peru, in the presence of the president of the state. He was one of the founders of Peruvian aviation. Bielovucic was also director of the Aviation School of Reims. See the monograph by Jose Zlatar - Stambuk: Bielovucic - pionero da la aeronautica Castrense, Lima 1990.

Danilo Blanusa

Danilo Blanusa (1903-1987), Croatian mathematician, professor at the University of Zagreb, was born in Osijek. He discovered a mistake in relations for absolute heat Q and temperature T in relativistic phenomenological thermodynamics, published by Max Planck in Annalen der Physik in 1908:
Q = Q0 a, T = T0 a ,
where Q0 and T0 are the corresponding classical values, and a = (1-v2/c2)1/2. Blanusa proved that the correct relations should be
Q = Q0 / a, T = T0 / a .
This result that he published in Glasnik mat.-fiz i astr., 2/1947 (No 4-5), pp 249-250, in his article "Sur les paradoxes de la notion d'énergie" [PDF], was rediscovered 13 years later by Heinrich Ott, and published in "Zeitschrift für Physik" in 1963. It is already time to correct wrong attribution of this discovery to Heinrich Ott in the scientific literature, since Blanusa's priority is indisputable. Blanusa's most important work is related to isometric immersions of two-dimensional Lobacevski plane into six-dimensional Euclidean space and generalizations. This result is included in authoritative Japanese mathematical encyclopedia Sugaku jiten published by Iwanami shoten, Tokyo, 1962, p. 612. His work about imbeddings of hyperbolic spaces into Euclidean spaces has been cited in 1956 by John Nash (well known mathematician, Nobel prize for economy; Blanusa is cited in his paper "The imbedding problem for Riemannian manifolds", Annals of Mathematics, Vol 63, No. 1, 1956, pp. 20-63). .

Fran Bosnjakovic

Fran Bosnjakovic (1902-1993), born in Zagreb, was one of world's leading experts in technical thermodynamics. Educated in Zagreb, where his scientific career started in 1926, he moved to Dresden, Germany, in 1928. In 1931 he became university teacher at Dresden High Mechanical Engineering School. After a short stay in Belgrade, he moved back to the University of Zagreb in 1936. After 1945, during the Yugoslav communist regime, he was degraded to two years of forced labor. In 1951 he became rector of the University of Zagreb.
Since 1953 he started lecturing at the High technical school in Braunschweig in Germany, where he became head of the Department for thermodynamics and director of the Thermotechnical institute. In 1961 he founded the Institute of Thermodynamics for Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, that he led until his retirement in 1968. He also established groups for Irreversible Thermodynamics, Mass Transfer and Thermokinetics, Radiation and Plasma, and Heat Transfer. It is interesting that his textbook Technische Thermodynamik, published already in 1935 in Dresden, had seven improved and extended editions in Germany, and was translated into English (Technical Thermodynamics) and Russian (Tehnicheskaya termodinamika). The Croatian translation had five editions (Nauka o toplini). See his list of publications held at the University of Stuttgart.
Professor Bosnjakovic obtained honorary doctorate from High Technical School RWTH Aachen, Grashof's medal from the German Society of Engineers VDI in 1969, gold medal from the Associazione Termotechnica Italiana in Padova in 1966, another gold medal from the Institut français des combustibles et de l'énergie in Paris. On the occasion of his 80'th birthday in 1982 the German Society of Engineers VDI issued a special publication devoted to his scientific work. In 1987, on the occasion of his 85'th birthday, a solemn colloquium was organized by the Technical University of Stuttgart. Also, he was a member of
Academies in Heidelberg (Heidelberger Akademie der Wissesnschaften),
Braunschweig (Braunschweigsche Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft),
Assoziazione Termotecnica Italiana in Padova, 1966 (recipient of gold medal),
Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Venice,
honorable member of Institut International du Froid (International Institute of Refrigeration) since 1960,
Institut francais des combustibles et de l'energie, 1970 (recipient of the medal),
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (1992, i.e., only after the fall of ex Yugoslavia, and a year before the death of Bosnjakovic).
On the occasion of his election as a member of the Academy of Sciences in Heidelberg in 1971, he said:
Denn das Ingenierwessen is vor allem auch ein Beruf des Könnes und der verantwortungsvollen Gestaltung, wofür wissenschaftliche Grundlagen nur einen, wenn auch beachtlichen, notwendigen Teil bilden.
ECOS 2002 International conference, organized by the Institute for Energy Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, has been dedicated to the memory of Fran Bosnjakovic.

Spiridion Brusina

A zoologist of international reputation Spiridion Brusina (born in Dubrovnik, 1845-1908), analyzed and classified 600 fossil species. He has a great merit for popularizing science in Croatia. Natural scientists throughout Europe named in his honor about 50 species according to his name.

Nikola Cindro

Nikola Cindro (1931-2001) was a Croatian physicist, descendant of very old Croatian nobility from 8th century, from Croatian south (Split, Poljica). He was lecturing in Zagreb, Frankfurt, Paris and Strasbourg, and occupied the position of vice president of European Physical Society. His high quality work was recognized also abroad: he was a member of Italian physical society and Officier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques, Paris, 1997.

Franjo Domin

Franjo Domin (born in Zagreb, 1754-1819), studied physics and theology in Vienna and later became a dean at the Faculty of Philosophy and rector of the University of Budapest. He was among the first who cured various diseases by electrotherapy using static electricity.

Juraj Dragisic

Juraj Dragisic (Georgius Benignus), Franciscan born in the famous Bosnian town Srebrenica, suggested a reform of the Julian calendar to Pope Leon X in 1514 in his study Correctio erroris, which was accepted by the Pope Gregory XIII. The new, Gregorian ca lendar is in use since 1582.

William Feller

William Feller (Vilim, Willy, Willi, 1906-1970) is a well known name among mathematicians dealing with probability theory. He was born and educated in Zagreb as Vilim Feller, where he studied mathematics, and earned the degree of Master of Science in mathematics in 1925. Already the next year, at the age of 20, he defended his doctoral degree in mathematics at the University of Göttingen, at that time the strongest mathematical center in the world. He was a professor at the Universities of Kiel, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Lund, Providence, Princeton etc., a member of many scientific organizations. Many important mathematical notions bear his name: Feller's process, Feller's transition function, Feller's semigroup, Feller's property. He is best known for his monograph "An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications", Volumes I and II, on 1153 pp., translated into Russian, Chinese and Polish. They are considered among the best mathematical textbooks written in the 20th century. At the International Congress of Mathematicians held in 1958 in Edinburgh, William Feller gave a plenary talk "Some new connections between probability and classical analysis." Feller was among those who initiated issuing the important Mathematical Reviews journal, and was its first executive editor (1944-1945). He worked with von Neumann, one of the creators of modern computers. Feller was awarded the National Medal of Science of the USA in 1969. He was in touch with his relatives in Zagreb, as well as with his colleagues at the University of Zagreb.

Rudolf Fizir

Rudolf Fizir (1891-1960), born in Ludbreg in Croatia, built 18 airplanes. He was awarded the Paul Tissandier Diploma by the F.A.I. (Fédération Aeronautique Internationale), for his achievements in developing world aviation. With his two-wing aircraft Fizir, constructed in 1925, he won the first prize at the Petite Entente contest in 1927. From then on began his serial aircraft production in cooperation with well known companies: the Fizir-Mercedes, the Fizir-Wirght, the Fizir-Titan, the Fizir-Kastor, the Fizir-Gypsi, and the half-metallic Fizir-Jupiter.
He also reconstructed some models into hydroplanes. His great success was Fizir FN, two-wing, two-seat aircraft with double commands (more than hundred planes!). It was used as instruction plane even 30 years after the end of the WW2! In 1931 he constructed amphibious aircraft, Fizir 1931, intended for landing on rivers, lakes and the sea. He also constructed a tourist aircraft as early as 1935. He also constructed parachutes, like its inventor Faust Vrancic. During the WW2 he worked in Zagreb, lecturing aircraft construction at the Technical Faculty. After the WW2 he worked in the Industrial Research Institute in Zagreb

Stefan Gelineo

Stefan Gelineo, Croat by birth, born in Stari Grad on the island of Hvar (1898-1971), studied in Leipzig and Vienna. He was the professor of physiology at the University of Belgrade (capital of Serbia and former Yugoslavia). He is internationally known by his contributions to the study of hypothermia, i.e. the study of vital functions under low temperatures

Vladimir Jurko Glaser

Vladimir Jurko Glaser (1924-1984), theoretical physicist in the field of quantum fields theory, published one of the first monographs on Quantum Electrodynamics in the world (Kovarijantna kvantna elektrodinamika, Zagreb 1955, written in Croatian), at the age of 31. On p. 8 of the book he mentioned that the existence of positronium has been theoretically predicted by Stjepan Mohorovicic in 1934.
He was head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb. In 1957 he found permanent employment at the Department of Theoretical Physics in CERN in Geneva. Letters sent to Glaser by Wolfgang Pauli (nicknamed "the sword of theoretical physics") show Glaser's outstanding scientific status among theoretical physicists of his time. On the occasion of Glaser's death, during the commemoration held in CERN, prof. Henry Epstein said that he does not understand Croatian, but when in need for details and formulae, he prefers to consult Glaser's book (written in Croatian!), since it is reliable in all details.

Dragutin Gorjanovic Kramberger

Dragutin Gorjanovic Kramberger (1856-1936) was a professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Zagreb. He discovered the richest collection of remains of Diluvial Neanderthal people in the world on a site not far from Zagreb (Krapina). He was the first man in history to have used X-rays to analyze fossil bones (X-rays were discovered by Nikola Tesla).

Stjepan Gradic

One of the most outstanding Dubrovnik mathematicians, physicists and astronomers of the 17th century was Stjepan Gradic (1613-1683), who was a Director of the Vatican Library. Some of his experimental results are cited by Jacob Bernoulli, and his tractate about navigation incited Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz to discuss the problem of steering ships using helms. Gradic's book Disserationes physisco-mathematicae quatour was published in Amsterdam in 1680. He died in Rome, where according to his last wish he was buried in the Croatian church of St. Jerome.

Frederik Grisogono

Frederik Grisogono (born in Zadar, 1472-1538), a mathematician, physicist, astronomer and physician, was educated in Padova, where later he became a university professor. His commentaries on Euclid's `Elements' were published in his book Speculum astronomicum terminans intellectum humanum in omni scientia, Venice in 1507. His most important contribution was the theory of tides, based on the attraction of the Moon, which influenced Mark Antun Dominis. He discovered the antipodal tidal wave. His theory of tides is described in De modo collegiandi, pronosticandi et curandi febres, nec non de humana felicitate ac denique de fluxu et refluxu maris, Venice 1528.

Franjo Hanaman

Franjo Hanaman (1878-1941), chemist and metallurgist, invented together with Aleksandar Just the first economical electric bulb with wolfram filament. During 1910, when Hanaman sojourned in the USA, his patent rights have been bought by the General Electric Co.

Ivan Jagsic

Ivan Jagsic (1886-1956), born as a Burgenland Croat in Austria, studied cartography, topography and geology in Zürich. As a professor of University of Cordoba, Argentina, he lectured also meteorology and astronomy, and wrote numerous scientific books. The South American Oceanographic Institute in Brazil was named after him.

Zvonimir Janko

Zvonimir Janko, professor of mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, is a well known name among experts in the theory of finite groups. He discovered sporadic groups named J1 (discovered in 1965, more than century after the first sporadic group), J2, J3, and J4 in his honour (there are altogether 26 sporadic groups). The discovery of J1 launched the modern theory of sporadic groups. About his research he delivered one among four plenary lectures at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice, France, 1970.

Ferdinand Kovacevic

One of the pioneers of telegraphy is Ferdinand Kovacevic (1838-1913). He invented the possibility of telegraphic connection along a single wire (the duplex connection), whereas before four wires had been used. By the way, Zagreb had its telegraph lines only six years after the first telegraph lines in the world introduced by Morse (Washington-Baltimore, 1844). Telegraph connection with the Croatian region of Lika, where Kovacevic was born, had been established already in 1854. Kovacevic published several electrotechnical books in Zagreb in German language.

Ludwig Mitterpacher

Ludwig (Ljudevit) Mitterpacher von Mitterburg (Mitterburg = Pazin in Istria, 1734 - 1814), was born in Bellye (Bilje in eastern Croatia, near Danube river) and educated in Austria. He studied mathematics and theology at Vienna University and was appointed a teacher of religion in 1762. In 1777, Mitterpacher became the first professor of the newly-established agricultural faculty at the Pest University, a position he kept until his death. A very popular lecturer, Mitterpacher also wrote several schoolbooks and lecture notes. His most significant work was the three-volume Elementa rei Rusticae, a comprehensive study of agricultural science and practice. Subjects included cultivation, plant-growing, horticulture, vine-growing, forestry, animal husbandry and food processing. His books originally written in Latin language were translated into several languages and became important works of reference for contemporary science. Mitterpacher became a member of the Academy of Sciences in Bologna.

Stjepan Mohorovicic

Stjepan Mohorovicic (1880-1980), professor of physics at a grammar school in Zagreb, made a very important theoretical discovery of the positronium (rotational pair of electron and positron) as early as in 1934, published in "Astronomishe Nachrichten", a prestigeous German scientific journal (precise reference is A. Mohorovicic, Astron. Nachr. 253, 94 (1934)). Its existence was confirmed experimentally in 1951 by Martin Deutsch, MIT physicist (and a member of Manhattan Project). Still earlier, in 1927, Stjepan Mohorovicic predicted the existence of the MOHO-layer on the Moon, analogous to that of the Earth, discovered by his father Andrija Mohorovicic. Its existence has been proved in 1969 during the famous Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. Seismic measurements have been carried out by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, the first humans to land on the Moon.

Andrija Mohorovicic

Among scientists studying seismology the famous Moho-layer (or Moho-discontinuity) of the Earth is well known. It was named after the great Croatian geophysicist Andrija Mohorovicic (born in Volosko, 1857-1936), professor at the University of Zagreb. His discovery was essential for understanding the inner structure of the Earth and the behavior of seismic waves. Together with the theory of forces due to Rudjer Boskovic, this is probably the greatest achievement in the history of Croatian science. .

Vinko Paletin

Vinko Paletin (1508-1575), born in the noble family on the island of Korcula, arrived to Mexico as a young missionary. Later, after his studies in Italy, he became professor of mathematics in Vicenza. For several years Paletin was employed on diplomatic missions for the Spanish King Philip II.He translated from Spanish into Italian the work about navigation written by the Spanish cosmograph Pedro Medina (L'arte del naviger, Venice, 1554). Paletin's most important work is De jura et justitia belli contra Indias, preserved as manuscript in Latin, and a more extensive version in Spanish (Croatian translations exist since 1978 and 1979). He mentioned that builders of Maya pyramids in Chichen-Itza, Mayapan and Uxumal, as well as builders of huge basalt heads, were in fact old Cartagians which according to antic authors sailed off long ago across Gibraltar, and discovered the New World (Hesperids). Maya Indians recounted to Paletin an old legend about "the arrival of bearded people from far away".

Eduard Penkala

Eduard (Slavoljub) Penkala (1871-1922), born in Slovakia to a Polish/Dutch family, became naturalized Croat when after his marriage his family immigrated to Zagreb. He invented the mechanical pen in 1906 and fountain pen in 1907 which are bearing his name and now they are in everyday use.
Indeed, the name of "pen" is derived from his family name, and the name of "penkala" is also in use today for the chemical pen. The patent was registered in thirty-five countries throughout the world.
He was also one of the first constructors of planes (Zagreb, 1910), only seven years after brothers Wright.
His first invention was a rasin bottle filled with hot water, called Termofor (hot water bottle), used in bed as "central heating" during cold nights

Franjo Petris

Franjo Petris (Franciscus Patricius, a Croat born on the island of Cres, 1529-1597), a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, was lecturing at the University of Ferrara and in Sapienza in Rome. During his stay on Cyprus (then belonging to Venice) he created a rich collection of Greek manuscripts, that finished in the Escorial. With his philosophical views of neoplatonism and sharp anti-aristotelism he influenced Giordano Bruno. His most important books are Nova de universis philosophia (New General Philosophy) and La citta felice (A Happy Town), published in Padova, treating the organization of ideal society, a forerunner of Campanella's "Civitas Solis" (1623). He is buried in the Torquato Tasso tomb in the church of St Onofrius in Rome.

Ivo Puljizic

Ivo Puljizic, born in Pucisce on the island of Brac, made irrigation plans for the Vatican and projected various Vatican bell-towers in the time of Pope Innocent X, 17th century.

Mario Puratic

Our uncle Mario Puratic (1917, born in Croatia in Sumartin on the island of Brac), revolutionarized the technology of pulling out fishing nets from the sea by his construction of what is now known as the Puratic Power Block in 1950s. Until then fishing nets had to be manually drawn by eight to ten people, which was an extremely difficult job. The Marco Seattle company developed Puratic's idea, and it soon became a standard mean of fishing in the whole world. In 1975 the United States Patent Office conferred him a special recognition for his patent which revolutionarized the fishing technology worldwide. He was elected among hundred greatest inventors of the 20th century in the USA. In 1972 the National Bank of Canada issued a new series of 5 dollar banknotes with the Puratic Power Block on a fishing boat drawn on the reverse side!

Eduard Prugovecki

Eduard Prugovecki (1937-2003), outstanding Croatian theoretical physicist, was born in Craiova, Romania (his mother was Romanian of Polish descent, and his father was Croatian). Having completed his primary and secondary education in Bucharest, he moved with his family to Zagreb, where he studied physics and started his early scientific career. In 1961 he was sent to Princeton where he received his Ph.D. in 1964. The next year he emigrated to Canada, and since then worked at the University of Toronto. Professor Prugovecki wrote four monographs, and the last two are
Quantum Geometry (Kluwer, 1992)
Principles of Quantum General Relativity (World Scientific, 1995)
dealing with quantum field theory, quantum geometry, and unification of quantum theory and general relativity.
He also published two futuristic novels: Memoirs for the Future (Cross Cultural Publications, Notre Dame, 2001), and Dawn of the New Man (Xlibris, Philadelphia, 2002).

Miroslav Radman

Miroslav Radman élu a l'Académie des Sciences, France, 2002 (Biologie cellulaire et moléculaire)

David Schwarz

David Schwarz, a Zagreb Jew (1852-1897), invented steerable metal airship that is today unjustly bearing the name of the German count Zeppelin. Indeed, Zeppelin bought the complete project from Schwartz's wife, shortly after his premature death. It is true that in 1897 the `Zeppelin' constructed by Schwartz fell down during its trial flight near Berlin, due to a small technical error in the propeller, having reached the height of 460 m. It was 47.5 m long and had 35 tons.
While preparing the project of his flying ship, which for the first time was predicted to be metal made, he had to resolve many technical and technological problems. This led to the discovery of the special aluminum alloy now known under the name dural, also called the Schwartz aluminum.

Simun Stratik

Simun Stratik (Simone Stratico, 1733-1829), outstanding specialist in nautical theory, was born in Zadar (in the family of Schiavoni which came to Zadar from Crete). He lectured mathematics and nautical theory in Padova, and then nautical theory at the University of Pavia. By the end of his life he prepared a new edition of Vitruvius' famous Architecture (1825) in four books accompanied with 320 tables. He published among others his translation into Italian (published in Padova in 1776) and his commentaries to the book of a famous Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler Theorie complette de la construction et de la manoeuvre des vaisseaux (1733); Euler's text has 360 pp, and Stratik's commentaries 180 pp; the translation into Italian appeared before English and Russian translations;
three language nautical dictionary Vocabolario di marina in tre lingue (Milano, 1813), Italian-French-English (in three books, the first book has more than 500 pp); the fourth book was also planned, but never issued.

Ignacije Szentmartony

Ignacije Szentmartony (1718-1793) was a Croatian Jesuit born in Croatian north (Kotoriba in Medjimurje), of a Croat mother and Hungarian father. After his studies in Vienna and Graz he lectured mathematics in Graz. In 1751 he went to Lisabon, where he obtained the title of royal mathematician and astronomer, and as such was designated to be a member of expedition for determining borders. In 1753 he sailed off from Portugal to the mouth of Amazon river for geographic research there. Only a small amount of his work is preserved to these days: two maps of the Amazon and Rio Negro. By the end of his life, upon return to Croatia, he wrote the first Croatian kajkavian grammar for Germans: Einleitung zur kroatischen Sprachlehre für Teutschen, Varazdin 1783.

Vladimir Varicak

The scientific activity of Vladimir Varicak (1865-1942), professor of mathematics at the University of Zagreb, was mainly in non-Euclidean geometry and its applications to Einstein's theory of relativity. His lecture delivered in 1911 at the German Mathematical Society in Karlsruhe has been published in 1912 in Jahresberichte der Deutschen Mathematike Vereinigung, and translated from German into Polish (Warszaw, 1913), Russi