It is not widely known that one of the earliest AC (alternating current) electric power systems in the world has been built up in Croatia, on the beautiful Krka waterfalls (one of Croatian national parks). It brought light to the city of Sibenik, 11 km from the power plant. It was built in 1895, one year before Nikola Tesla‘s famous power plant on the Niagara falls. The chief engineer was Ante Supuk. The plant brought light to the Šibenik cathedral,…
Modern Slavic studies were founded by Vatroslav Jagic (born in Varazdin, 1838-1923), professor of philology at the Universities of Zagreb, Berlin, Vienna, Sankt Petersburg, Odessa. He was a full member of the Petersburg’s and Austrian Academies of Sciences. A great importance for the development of Slavic philology had the journal Archiv fur slavishe Philologie that he founded in Berlin, and whose editor in chief he was during 45 years. He also initiated and organized the Seminar for Slavic studies in…
Some important discoveries in the field of Croatian archeology were accomplished by don Frano Bulic (1846-1936). Especially important was a discovery of an inscription on the sarcophagus of queen Jelena (10th century).
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…
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.
Vinko Dvořák (1848-1922), Czech who came from Prague to Zagreb in 1875 and was lecturing physics at the University of Zagreb, was the student of Ernst Mach. He is well known by his discoveries in acoustics, especially about acoustic forces. He was the first constructor of an acoustic radiometer, which has been unjustly attributed to Rayleigh. Information by professor Vatroslav Lopasic, professor of physics at the University of Zagreb. Parts of acoustic radiometer constructed by Vinko Dvořák, kept in the…
Peter Salcher (1848 – 1928), professor at the Rijeka Naval Academy, was a close associate of Ernst Mach and succeeded in what the famous physicist could not achieve – to make a picture of the invisible. Mach wanted to provide experimental evidence of his hypothesis about the existence of a shock wave around objects moving at speeds greater than the speed of sound. Therefore, he asked Salcher to try gaining such evidence in his laboratory in Rijeka. No sooner said than…