Croatian History

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 Mathematiker Vereinigung, and translated from German into Polish (Warszaw, 1913), Russian (St. Petersburg, 1914), French (Paris, 1914). His most important work is the monograph Darstellung der Relativitätstheorie im dreidimensionalen Lobatschefskijschen Raume,…

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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 “penkala” and now they are in everyday use. Indeed, the name of “penkala” is in use also today for the chemical pen. The patent was registered in thirty-five countries throughout the world. He was also one of the first constructors…

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Another constructor of airplanes was Ivan Saric, who had been flying in Subotica in 1913 (only 10 years after brothers Wright, and three years after Penkala in Zagreb). Ivan Saric with his airplane, source maketarstvo.net

A great merit in popularizing astronomy and technical sciences in Croatia has Oton Kucera (1857-1931) with his numerous published books and articles. See [ppt1] and [ppt2] (in Croatian;  many thanks to Tatjana Kren and Branko Hanzek for permission). Upon the suggestion of Oton Kucera, an asteroid (589), discovered by his colleague August Kopff in Heidelberg in 1906, was named Croatia. It is interesting that a granddaughter of Oton Kucera has the first name Kroacija. We mention in passing that there is…

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Jaroslav Havlicek was born in Croatia, in Garesnica (1879 – 1950), of the Czech nationality. His steam boiler fed by coal powder represented a revolution in building large power supplies. A reputed journal Applied Mechanic’s Review included him among 10 most important personalities in the history of energetics (besides Volta, Fermi, Edison, Tesla). His major inventions were completed during his stay in Brno (Czechia). Since 1919 he was a professor in Zagreb.

Franjo Hanaman (1878-1941), chemist and metallurgist, distinguished professor of the University of Zagreb, 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. During his visit, he met Nikola Tesla. William David Coolidge, american physicist and since 1932 director of the scientific laboratory of General Electric Co, wrote on the occasion of Hanaman’s 50th birthday and the then…

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Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), born in Croatia (at that time within Austria-Hungary), is well known and need not be particularly introduced. 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…

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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. Let us cite a part…

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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…

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As an explorer, Dragutin Lerman (1863-1918) was a member of Stanley’s expedition to Congo (Zaire), and a commissary (Commissaire General) of the Belgian government in Congo. By the end of his career the Belgian king Leopold conferred the knighthood of Lion’s order on him. And the famous Stanley wrote: “The Croat is energetic, cautious, in high spirits…” It is interesting that in 1882 Lerman discovered huge waterfalls on the river of Kwil, which he named the Zrinski Waterfalls (Zrinski chutes),…

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