Mihajlo Pupin: Renaissance man in the modern age

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Avatar for lukalaban1981
3 years ago

One of the most famous Serbian scientists was married on October 9, 1858 in Idvor, Banat, Serbia. He gave himself the nickname 'Idvorski' after his birthplace. An exceptional scientist in my opinion who glorified his country and I personally have a very high opinion of him.

A clean cheek and a giving heart. A good man who managed to reach the stars, to dedicate his whole life to the well-being of others, Mihajlo Pupin was a scientist, pedagogue, academic, Pulitzer Prize winner, mason, businessman, one of the greatest benefactors. He gave everything he gained to Serbia and the Serbian people, an estimated two billion dollars today.

After finishing primary and, partially, secondary school in the fall of 1872, he went to school in Prague, Czech Republic, where he continued the sixth grade and the first semester of the seventh grade of high school. He studied very erratically due to his participation in the conflicts between the Czech and German youth and his grief for his homeland. In his twenties, he went to the United States.

Pupin, who was born on this day in 1854 in Idvor, lived very hard for the first five years after arriving in the United States. He worked as a manual laborer, attending Cooper's evening school at the same time. In the fall of 1879, he passed the entrance exam to Columbia College in New York.

As an exemplary student, he was exempted from paying tuition fees, and at the end of the first year he received two cash prizes (from Greek and mathematics). He mainly supported himself by income from teaching weaker students and physical work.

After graduating in 1883, he received a bachelor's degree from the Bachelor of Arts, and the day before that he received American citizenship.

He immediately received a scholarship, as an excellent student, to study mathematics and physics in Cambridge, Great Britain (1883-1885), and then in Berlin (1885-1889), where he received his doctorate in physical chemistry, with the topic: "Osmotic pressure and its relation to free energy ".

Pupin, in addition to being a successful scientist, was also a good writer. For his autobiographical work "From Pasture to Scientist", which was published in 1923, he received the Pulitzer Prize a year later. It could be said that he was a Renaissance - a versatile man several centuries after the Renaissance.

He was married to American Sarah Catherine Jackson of New York. He had with her a daughter, Barbara, married to Smith.

He died in the United States in March 1935, where he was buried. It is unknown to the general public that he selflessly donated to the National Museum, which inherits the Legacy of this great scientist.

In the photo below, Pupin is in the garden of his summer house in Northfolk in the company of friends, daughter and son-in-law.

he was a friend of the personalities, including Albert Einstein, but also Woodrow Wilson, thanks to which the flag of Serbia was flying at the White House and American institutions.

In 1918, the First World War in Europe continued to burn. After several years of restraint and public opposition, in 1917 the United States of America finally entered the war, with a rested and fresh army, well equipped and ready.

At that time, the Serbian army was already on the Thessaloniki front and there were battles that would enable it to return to the occupied homeland.

Impressed by the fighting spirit of Serbia, US President Woodrow Wilson set a precedent - he issued an order to place the Serbian flag on all public institutions in America on July 28, 1918, on the fourth anniversary of the Austro-Hungarian attack on Serbia. That is how the tricolor fluttered on the mast on the White House.

That summer, it was held in America through manifestations to help Serbia. Behind the whole project were Ljubomir M. Mihailović, the Serbian ambassador to Washington, and Mihajlo Pupin, a famous scientist of our origin and a personal friend of Woodrow Wilson.

"The struggle of the Serbian people for freedom and law as the aspirations of all great Slavic peoples for the recognition of their national identity and their right to self-determination as well as free political action, attract more attention than ever and must win the sympathy of everyone who sees what every day it is becoming increasingly clear to the statesmen of all nations - that future world peace depends on the consent of the peoples to a destiny that concerns their happiness and future, "said Woodrow Wilson.

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Srbija je stvarno imala i ima mnogo talentovanih ljudi u mnogim poljima nauke.

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Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, Ph.D., LL.D., also known as Michael Pupin was a Serbian-American physicist, physical chemist, philanthropist.

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