Fran Bosnjakovic
Fran Bosnjakovic (or Franjo 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. He was a collaborator of Croatian Encyclopaedia. 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.
Bosnjakovic’s “Technische Thermodynamik” had till the year 2000 altogether thirty editions in four languages (German, English, Russian, and Croatian).
- In 1945 the book was translated as “Technical Thermodynamics I” by Edwards Brothers Inc, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (unauthorized translation), and the same year “Technical Thermodynamics II” (by the same publisher, also unauthorized translation).
- The first Croatian edition appeared in 1947 in Zagreb.
- The first Russian edition “Tehicheskaya termodinamika, chast’ pervaya” of volume I of Bosnjakovic’s monograph appeared unauthorized in 1955, published by the State Energetic Publishing House (Gosudarstvennoe energeticheskoe izdatel’stvo), Moscow and Leningrad. The second volume of the Russian edition was issued in 1956, also unauthorized. In their Preface to the book the translators stress the excellency of exposition, and in depth theoretical analysis. A sample of Russian edition sent to professor Bosnjakovic contains the following dedication: Glubokouvazhaemomu profesoru Bosnjakovicu ot perevodchika etoj prekrasnoj knigi, na pamyat’, V.A. Kirillin [one of translators], 1969, Moskva.
- The authorized editions of Bosnjakovic’s books in the USA were published in 1965 by Holt, Reinhart and Winston, New York (20 year after unauthorized edition).
For more information see: Fran Bosnjakovic, Spomenica posvecena 100. obljetnici rodjenja, uredio Mladen Andrassy, Zagreb, 2001. ISSBN 953-6002-21-3. In 2012 the integral three volume edition of Bošnjaković’s monograph has been published in Croatian by Graphis in Zagreb (Volumes I and II have been printed in the book form, and Vol III is on the accompaning CD).